Satellite telenets: A techno-economic assessment of major trends for the future

This paper reviews the historical trends in the development of new communications satellite technology and the technical and economic forces that will drive a new revolution in wide-band communications services in the 1980s and 1990s. The following key technical and service aspects of the new satellite telenets of the 1980s and 1990s will be addressed: new digital services, new antenna designs, intersatellite links, on-board signal processing and regeneration, and new architectural and servicing concepts for long-lived satellites. The possibility of non-Clarke orbit communications satellites in the 21st century will also be reviewed. Competitive technical and economic trends in other forms of telecommunications technologies will also be explored, in order to establish some economic and service "figures of merit" for the future. This analysis reveals some exciting and unexpected aspects about the new satellite telenets of the late-twentieth and early-twenty- first centuries. If messages are beamed to and from communications satellites by laser, there would be room for so many channels that every person on Earth could have his own, just as he has his own telephone number. He could reach everyone on Earth with no trouble, transmitting sight as well as sound... It is not unlikely that a good beginning toward laser satellite communications may be made by the end of the century... If so, it will represent a remarkable advance, considering that at the beginning of the century, mankind was still tied to the wire. (Isaac Asimov, Science Past, Science Present. New York: Ace Books, 1975.) If you\´re willing to spend enough money on advanced electronics you can virtually guarantee they can be made to not work.--One of Augustine\´s Laws. ("Augustine\´s Laws and major systems development programs, pt. 2," Aeronautics and Astronautics, p. 49, Jan. 1981.)