Researching networked protection technology of distribution network based on IEC 61850 has become a new hot spot in the development of distribution network. However, the networked protection of the distribution network faces the communication distances, large scope, and harsh communication conditions for multiple sites. The real-time and reliability of communication are challenged severely, and it is urgent to be analyzed and demonstrated quantitatively. Therefore, based on the IEC 61850 standard and relying on the OPNET simulation platform, the message and equipment of networked protection communication system are modeled, and the simulation model in different scenarios is built combined with communication networking scheme, equipment selection and sampling strategy. The performance of communication network such as delay, delay jitter and packet loss rate are collected to quantitatively analyze and demonstrate the real-time and reliability of the communication network. Finally, the application boundary of the communication network is also discussed. The real-time and reliability research methods and analysis results based on OPNET can provide an important reference for the engineering application of networked protection of distribution network. This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51577073).