A Canadian demonstration system in support of enhanced personal and business services

Spar Aerospace and a group of Canadian companies have been developing the concept for a demonstration satellite system. The focus of this work has been the provision of wide band or enhanced personal communications and its integration into the business services environment. This work has been stimulated by an emerging trends towards the telecommuter society, and the move towards a less rigid workplace environment, including the so called virtual cooperation. The work is based on a geosynchronous satellite concept utilizing the Ka band (20/30 GHz) and is fully complementary to narrow-band personal communications services employing lower frequency bands and global low earth orbit constellations. The authors review the application environment, discuss the major problems encountered, and discuss some of the possible solutions