Perhaps nothing distinguishes Man from all other creatures as much as his ability and his desire to communicate. Satellite technology, in a few short decades, has radically revolutionized how we communicate.

Making connections

When, in 1945, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke published an article in the magazine ‘Wireless World’ describing the possibility of a global communications network based on three geosynchronous orbit (that is, with the same period of rotation as the Earth), reactions were skeptical, to say the least. No-one at the time could remotely imagine the immense developments in store for space communications.

Today, millions of users around the globe routinely use satellite services for a vast array of applications in work, for leisure, or just to keep in touch. Communications between people that used to take days or even months now take only a few moments or seconds via satellite television news from remote parts is beamed into our living rooms, colleagues in different countries can hold ‘face-to-face’ videoconferences, journalists can file their copy immediately from abroad, an anthropologist doing fieldwork in deepest Amazonia or a sailor on board ship on the high sea can call home, students in Africa can access the World Wide Web … Read the rest of this entry »