ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses both the opportunities and problems that satellite communications pose. It looks at satellites as instruments of cross-cultural education. The chapter shows that perhaps most of the first applications of satellite communications have been and will continue to be at the national or subnational level, within a homogeneous cultural and linguistic community. A satellite or global network of satellites can provide services to either a very small area or to areas that ultimately encompass the entire globe. Satellites can provide either dedicated channels between two points or interactive, on-demand networks involving multidestinational services to a large number of points. Fixed-satellite services are essentially telecommunications services and television and radio distribution services. The use of direct or semidirect television or radio broadcast satellites, as well as conventional fixed satellite systems, will improve the communications capacity of many countries at various levels of economic and social development.
