Page 32 - Communications Satellites Global Change Agents

1. SATELLITES AS WORLDWIDE CHANGE AGENTS 9

Before satellites (i.e., as recently as 1964) there were only a few hundred poor-
quality telephone circuits to interconnect the entire world. These submarine cable
voice links often resulted in "clipped-off' conversations due to an antiquated
technology called Time Assigned Speech Interpolation (TASI). This was a poorly
chosen acronym, but perhaps well suited to an even poorer technology. Today, Sri
Lanka, Kenya, and Uruguay each operate more overseas voice circuits than were
in worldwide use 40 years ago. Well over 200 countries have ready access to in-
ternational radio and TV broadcasts via satellite, and this is viewed as routine.
Before the end of the 21st century, we will be linked via space communications
not only to everywhere on our planet, but to the moon and maybe other parts of
our solar system. The national, regional, and global linkages that satellites provide
are comparable in impact on our planet to that of telephones, TV, the jet airplane,
or nearly any other modern technology.

THE GLOBAL INFORMATION REVOLUTION
AND INFORMATION OVERLOAD
Communication satellites, more than any other of the advanced electronic media
during the short period since the 1960s, have stimulated a true global information
revolution. Submarine cables and fiber optic networks have served to integrate the
most economically advanced countries together, but they have not been at the
core of creating true global interconnectivity. As described in more detail in a
later chapter, in the 1980s and early 1990s, Sidney Pike of CNN almost single
handedly brought satellite TV to scores of countries that had never seen interna-
tional news transmissions before.
Today, satellite systems such as Intelsat, Panamsat, SES Astra, Eutelsat,
Asiasat, and nearly 100 other space networks provide literally thousands of inter-
national connecting links between the countries of the world, in comparison with
fiber systems that are typically providing only a few score of point-to-point link-
ups. Global TV is still largely a satellite-based phenomenon and will remain so
for some time to come.
Global society—at least as measured in simple quantitative terms such as human
population, information available to global society, cultural linkages, medical sci-
ence, and longevity—has changed more since the 1960s than the patterns of human
life changed during 1 million years of cave man civilization.
This startling rate of change in the state and nature of human society is not hy-
perbole, but simple fact. Nor should it necessarily be considered a positive accom-
plishment. Actually such "superspeed" change should be comprehended as both a
source of wonder and even more so of concern. The last 35 to 40 years—and not
coincidentally also the era of satellite communications—represents a sea change
for world society. We have witnessed much more change (at least in tangible
things that we can measure) than ever occurred in vast spans of time in the early
days of human history.