Update on Satellite Communications

New technologies promise wireless, global e-mail and fax.

Jeanette Borzo (IDG News Service)

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GMPCSs are the latest in telecommunications, billed as the missing technology that lets an explorer in a remote Amazon jungle communicate via a wireless, pocket-sized, satellite-based phone to his home office in an obscure village in the Tibetan mountains, and then to fax his latest findings to an affiliate company in the frozen steppes of Siberia.

This emerging telecom category offers promise for remote users and international travelers alike, but there are still plenty of issues to work out before this developing technology skyrockets. Some GMPCSs are in place already for messaging communications, but the full promise of these satellites is still several years away.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) -- a specialized agency of the United Nations -- held the first World Telecommunication Policy Forum in Paris this week to discuss GMPCSs and what issues need to be ironed out between nations to turn the concept into reality. The ITU has no supra-national powers and so the forum didn%squott yield any new binding regulations, but a conference paper will be drafted with suggestions for telecom industries around the world.

Most GMPCS services, now beginning to come on-line or poised for a rollout by the year 2000, brag about worldwide coverage. But the option to offer service around the globe can be achieved only with permission from each country involved. Nations at the Policy Forum discussed issues such as globalization and international cooperation; transborder use of GMPCS terminals; the approval of mobile equipment based on its classification as a certain type rather than on the specifics of each device; and the waiving of customs duties and formalities for terminals that travelers bring temporarily into a country.

None of the proposed systems are meant to do away with existing phone infrastructure or cellular structure but rather will augment existing telecom networks for voice, fax, e-mail, and video communications. For instance, calls made through a GMPCS will most likely be made from or routed through a conventional phone system.

Satellite-based communications are possible already via geostationary satellites, but the user terminals are suitcase-sized and hardly portable. GMPCS devices in many cases will be as small as today%squots cellular phones. Also, geostationary satellites orbit at a much higher distance from the earth -- at 22,000 miles above the earth -- sometimes making instantaneous voice communications difficult.

Both geostationary satellites and GMPCSs move, but geostationary satellites move at the same speed as the earth, so that they do not appear to move when viewed from the earth. GMPCSs, also known as low and middle earth orbit satellites (LEOs and MEOs), are non-geostationary because they move at a different speed than the earth. Within the GMPCS category, there are a variety of satellite types: little LEOs, big LEOs and broadband LEOs.

Little LEOs operate at 930 miles from the earth, and already a few are operational for messaging, electronic mail, paging, and remote environmental monitoring -- at isolated facilities such as mines or oil refineries. Other planned services include limited Internet access and faxing. Little LEOs, such as those used by Orbcomm Global L.P., use VHF and UHF frequencies.

Big LEOs are larger and more powerful and are meant to extend terrestrial cellular mobile telephony, disaster relief communications, aviation communications, and voice communications for domestic and international travelers. Primary players in the big LEO sector include Globalstar L.P., ICO Global Communications, Iridium LLC, and Odyssey Telecommunications International.

Globalstar, Iridium and Odyssey -- which just recently signed a cooperation agreement concernng frequency allocaion -- all plan to provide digital wireless communications services around the world by 2000.

Broadband LEOs, such as Teledesic, plan to provide not only voice but also video communications. (The Federal Communications Commission is still considering Teledesic%squots proposal, submitted in 1994, to launch hundreds of satellites worldwide.)

Occasionally you%squotll hear about a MEO, or a middle earth orbit satellite. Mobile Communications Holdings%squot Ellipso is a MEO, set to operate at about 4,836 miles, and will offer mobile, handheld, and fixed-terminal communications, each able to operate with the satellite or with the local cellular system.

Whatever the form, GMPCSs do not appear to lack for customers. GMPCSs are expected to be popular with international business travelers where cellular coverage is poor or non-existent, long-haul commercial vehicle operators crossing national and international borders, people traveling on yachts and other vessels, and field scientists.

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