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Telecommunications for the 21st Century

By: pangsiyan


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Pace-based telecommunications system will change ot lives over the next two decades, providing rapid access to information of all types. Mass virtual-reality entertainment, videos on demand and expanded telehealth and teleducation services are just some of the developments we can expect to arrive with this torrent of data along with mounting information overload and the 1 68-hour work week.

In five years' time there will very likely he 1 ,000 commercis communications satellites in service, up from about 220 today Many of these switching stations in the sky will zoom" in low eart. orbit (LEO) only a few hundred kilometers overhead. But satellites in the more traditional geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) which turn with the earth 36,000 kilometers up, will remain very much in use.

The proximity of LEO satellites offers some important advantages over today's orbiters. Signals will zip hack and forth to love orbits in hundredths of a second, a decisive advantage over the quarter of a second that data take to travel lo and from GEO. The faster performance will make interactive global access to network; and video teleconferencing practical and appealing.

Satellites will soon not be the only type of space-based tele-communications system. By the year 2010 we could see High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) platforms hovering over cities anc beaming down thousands of data-rich signals. These innovative pi?lot less, electronically powered craft will fly or float for days in space at an altitude: of more than 20,000 meters, safely a-DOve commercial air traffic.

By far the most significant change in the coming decades is that space-based systems will increasingly deliver information directly to the consumer, rather than to a commercial data hub. This shift means that aerospace corporations will, early in the next entry, find themselves competing directly with AT&T, British Telecom (BT) and other carriers.

Only a few years ago cumbersome dish antennas were needed to obtain a satellite connection faster than simple telephone service. More-3ver. such links were in short supply, and service at sea cost as much as $10 per minute. I hose limitations arc disappearing. The coming torrent ol high- speed data from space should be a great blessing for individuals and corporations around the world. It will be especially important in developing countries such as Brazil. India find China, which do not have extensive fiber optic networks.

I he key innovation for handling the growing demand is the phasecl-array'1 antenna. This sophisticated electronic device, used until now mainly for military communications, consists of multiple transmitting elements arranged in a fixed geometric array. Arrays can be programmed to send a grid of electronically formed radio beams to track moving targets or, alternatively, to receive signals from only certain directions.

Mounted on satellites, phased arrays can steer beams as little as half a degree across toward their intended recipients. Moreover, they are fully "adaptive": under the control of onboard supercomputers the si/.e of a shoebox that are now being built, they will be continually re-programmed. This flexibility began a decade ago with modified parabolic1 antennas, and the trend will continue.

Satellites of the 21st century will thus be able to "reuse" the same slice of spectrum many times.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Drive from: mobile phones for men. Satellites of the 21st century will thus be able to "reuse" the same slice of spectrum many times. Want to know more click free articles.

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