Growth of Satellite Communications and Need for New Frequencies

INTELSAT ushered in the era of commercial communication satellite services with the launch of Early Bird (or Intelsat I) in April of 1965. Transoceanic cables were unable to keep up with the rapidly growing international demand for voice traffic, and incapable of transmitting the bandwidth of real-time television broadcasts. In 1965, the four transatlantic cables handled a total of only 328 circuits. With INTELSAT 1,300 additional circuits were added revolutionizing transoceanic communication.

RCA inaugurated satellite communication services in the U.S. using transponders from Anik I, which was launched by Canada in November of 1972. Western Union launched Westar I in 1974 and used it for trunking, telex and TWX exchange services, point-to-point voice services, public messaging services, and data and facsimile services. It also provided video on a point-topoint and point-to-multipoint basis to a number of cities.

In 1977, voice and data were the major sources of communication satellite traffic, with video a distant third. In 1978, however, the growth of the cable TV systems using satellite distribution changed the market situation dramatically for satellite transponders. Almost overnight, a buyer s market changed to a seller s market. By 1979, twelve communication satellites were in orbit and providing commercial services. During this time period, communication satellites provided public switched telephony services, private-line voice and data services to large corporate users, and television-programming distribution to cable headends. TV programs are forwarded from the headend to the customer by cable. Personal computers were just being introduced.