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How Satellite TV Systems Originated
What we know as satellite tv actually
had its origins in the space race which began with the launching of
the satellite Sputnik by the Russians in 1957. The first communication
satellite was developed and launched by a consortium of business and
government entities in 1963. It was known as Syncom II and achieved
an orbit at 22,300 miles over the Atlantic. The first satellite communication
was between a U.S. Navy ship in the harbor of Lagos, Nigeria and the
U.S. Army located at the naval station at Lakehurst, New Jersey on
July 26, 1963.
Telephone companies began using satellite
communication for communicating as land based distribution methods
became overloaded. Television began using satellites on March 1, 1978
when the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) introduced Public Television
Satellite Service. Broadcast networks adopted satellite communication
as a distribution method from 1978 through 1984. As the use of satellites
for communication and broadcast purposes increased, it became evident
that everyone had the potential to receive satellite signals for free.
Direct to Home (DTH) satellite receivers
were developed in the early 1980's. Rural areas thus gained the capacity
to receive television programming that was not capable of being received
by standard methods. With the development of television receive only
(TVRO), broadcasters began to complain that reception of their signals
were being either received illegally or pirated. The position of the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was governed by its "open
skies' policy. It was the FCC's position that users had as much right
to receive satellite signals as broadcasters had the right to transmit
them.
The broadcasters, in response to this
government policy, began to use developed technologies which allowed
them to scramble the signals they were broadcasting. Users, in turn,
had to buy a decoder from a satellite program provider that packaged
programs similar to the packages provided by cable systems. Ideas
began to abound about the potential market for satellite television.
The FCC, following the World Administrative Radio Conference of 1979,
in 1980 established the plans and policy for a new service, direct
broadcast satellite or DBS. This new service was to consist of a broadcast
satellite in geostationary orbit, facilities for transmitting signals
to the satellite and equipment needed by individuals to access the
signals.
Early successful attempts to launch
satellites for the mass consumer market were led by |