Page 56 - Communication Commerce and Power The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite

44 Communication, Commerce and Power

the key advantages of an advanced type of GSO system in relation to
existing AT&T and RCA elliptical systems included the potential to
transmit a signal to one-third of the earth's surface. This, explained
Pucket, 'gives us more than just a cable in the sky; it gives us, in effect,
a network in the sky':

If, for example, we choose to use a satellite of this sort as a TV
transponder, we might be transmitting TV signals from a single
station on the earth to the satellite which would then be repeated
and transmitted back into this beam and cover all the area. 15

Pucket also told Congress that the stationary characteristics of a
GSO satellite would significantly lower the costs associated with both
the many ground receivers required to track elliptical satellites and
with the relatively complex trunking systems needed to distribute the
signals on the ground. Moreover, world-wide coverage was conceiv-
able using just three high-altitude satellites, while elliptical systems
would require between 20 and 100 low-orbiting vehicles to do the
same thing 'depending on who makes the calculations and how optim-
istic one is.' 16 In a subsequent hearing, the head of the Hughes
Syncom project, C. Gordon Murphy, suggested that the US govern-
ment should reassess its financial support for research related to
AT&T's and RCA's elliptical systems. Once these systems are put in
place, warned Murphy, their high overhead costs would impel the
FCC 'to maintain a system of international telephone and television
rates that will be high enough to permit the recovery of the ...
[original] investment through the tariffs charged.' Murphy argued
that it was in the public interest 'to wait and see whether Syncom
will work before proceeding with any system.' 17
Unfortunately for Hughes, US policies shaping the development of
these new technologies involved far more than these kinds of cost-
based calculations. The AT&T telephone monopoly, due to the
terrestrial cable-based characteristics of its system, initially favored
the development of elliptical satellites because they constituted the
best 'fit' in terms of its own telecommunication infrastructure.
Because AT&T controlled America's point-to-point telephone trans-
missions through its ownership of switching facilities, microwave relay
stations and cable lines, the establishment of relatively low-power
elliptical systems would compel broadcasters and other satellite users
to remain dependent on the AT&T ensemble of terrestrial services. In
1962, AT&T owned about 80 per cent of all transoceanic cables to