StarWorld: A Cross-Layer World Model for Starlink Prediction and Streaming

Abstract

Starlink and other low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband systems exhibit stochastic access dynamics whose effects propagate from network measurements to throughput prediction and adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming, making reasoning over multiple plausible futures essential. Existing studies mainly characterize realized traces or individual system layers, leaving cross-layer world modeling of these evolving dynamics largely unexplored. To address this gap, we propose StarWorld, a cross-layer world model for Starlink prediction and streaming. StarWorld couples learned stochastic network dynamics with executable prediction, control, and playback processes to imagine multi-step cross-layer futures, while a calibrated Trust Gate determines whether these futures are sufficiently reliable for use. On real Starlink measurements, StarWorld achieves the lowest network-future distributional errors among the comparison methods at the principal horizons and reduces pairwise controller quality-of-experience (QoE) effect error by 76%. These results support StarWorld as a cross-layer imagination environment for studying prediction and streaming outcomes under uncertain Starlink access conditions.