Cost effectiveness in global satellite communications

Abstract

Global satellite communications, as the INTELSAT system has demonstrated, is a commercially successful business with over ten years of operating experience. The system provides high-quality reliable communications over a large number of links in successful competition with other modes of communications. The cost effectiveness of the INTELSAT system has increased in the last decade as measured by the per-circuit-year cost of satellites in orbit, space segment charges, and earth station and total circuit costs. Economies of scale and the use of progressively more advanced technology are expected to increase the cost effectiveness of global satellite communications in the future.