| Abstract: | There is a very large demand for basic telephone service in developing nations, and remote parts of industrialized nations, which cannot be met by conventional wireline and cellular systems. This is the world' largest unserved market. We describe a system which uses recent advances in active phased arrays, fast-packet switching technology, adaptive routeing, and light spacecraft technology, in part based on the work of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and on recently-declassified work done on the Strategic Defense Initiative, to make it possible to address this market with a global telephone network based on a large low-Earth-orbit constellation of identical satellites. A telephone utility can use such a network to provide the same modern basic and enhanced telephone services offered by telephone utilities in the urban centres of fully-industrialized nations. Economies of scale permit capital and operating costs per subscriber low enough to provide a service to all subscribers, regardless of location, at prices comparable to the same services in urban areas of industrialized nations, while generating operating profits great enough to attract the capital needed for its construction. The bandwidth needed to support the capacity needed to gain these economies of scale requires that the system use Ka-band frequencies. This choice of frequencies places unusual constraints on the network design, and in particular forces the use of a large number of satellites. Global demand for basic and enhanced telephone service is great enough to support at least three networks of the size described herein. The volume of advanced components, and services such as launch services, required to construct and replace these networks is sufficient to propel certain industries to market leadership positions in the early 21st Century. |
