Towards efficient end-to-end connectivity in B5G-NTN: in orbit UPF and dual connectivity

The growing integration of Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTNs) into beyond-5G (B5G) infrastructures opens up new opportunities for enhancing global mobile connectivity, particularly for customers and IoT devices in remote or underserved areas. However, the inherent latency and variability of satellite links and the topology dynamicity of low-orbit constellations introduce significant challenges in maintaining low-latency, high-throughput, and reliable end-to-end connections.This work investigates a distributed and hybrid B5G-NTN architecture built upon Dual Connectivity (DC) principle, where user equipments (UEs) can establish simultaneous connections via two satellite paths (e.g., LEO/GEO constellations or multi-LEOs) toward the 5G core (5GC).