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From: lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: Stargate and Usenet
Message-ID: <492@vortex.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Jan-85 19:52:31 EST
Article-I.D.: vortex.492
Posted: Wed Jan  2 19:52:31 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Jan-85 00:48:58 EST
References: <312@utcs.UUCP>
Organization: Vortex Technology, Los Angeles
Lines: 52

Sigh.  I spent 2 days out in Atlanta putting in this stuff -- I think
I know what I'm talking about.  Certainly the WTBS footprint
extends into parts of Canada, Mexico, and out into the oceans as well.

But there are definite limits to the fringe, which are pretty easy
to work out based on global geometry and line of sight from a single
point in orbit.  And there's no way to "entend the fringe" by antenna
retuning (within the geometry limits) without adversly affecting
reception in the primary coverage areas.  The footprint patterns
for a given satellite transponder are well known and fairly
precise.  The satellites are designed to put as MUCH power as possible
into the target areas and as LITTLE as possible into the non-targets.
Some have spot beams for Hawaii and Alaska to avoid flooding the
Pacific with wasted power.  The domestic satellites must be considered
to be only that--DOMESTIC.  To the extent that Canada and Mexico can
receive the signals, that's fine, but you can forget about anything
useful for Europe or the Far East.  I'm also not addressing the issue
of the legality of Canadian points receiving satellite transmissions
directly.  Apparently the Canadian laws are stricter about this than
the U.S. regulations.

I've said this before but I'll say it again.  Turner Broadcasting,
which own WTBS, does NOT own the satellite uplink facilities of WTBS.

Turner Broadcasting does not run any vertical interval data services
of their own, and apparently has no plans or interest in doing so
for the forseeable future.  Given their rate structures, it can
be fully expected that any future data services they might run would
be *extremely* expensive.  The WTBS uplink is owned and operated by
a SEPARATE COMPANY.  It has been this way since day one, since under
FCC regulations Turner cannot own both a local TV station (WTBS ch. 17)
and the national distribution mechanism for that station.  Such
ownership, even if made legal, would subject Turner to programming
charges based on a national market, not the Atlanta market prices
he pays now, so you can see why the current situation is stable.

While this separate company is symbiotic with Turner, it is
this separate company that has the complete control over the WTBS
satellite vertical interval.  They make the decisions about what data
will be on there, how much will be charged, and all related
decisions.  It is this company, not Turner, with which we are
dealing, and it is this company that has made the data space
available for free for the experiment.  They are also the ones
who have made all the investments in equipment for supporting
data services, local computers, and all the other things required
to support the vertical interval services.  I'll make a lot of
this even more clear at the Dallas conference when I give my talk.

The politics of national satellite services are somewhat complicated,
but can be understood with some backround info.

--Lauren--