North American Network Operators Group
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Re: connectivity outside the US

  • From: Jakob Faarvang
  • Date: Sun Jun 01 07:41:53 1997 
>I have been following this thread with some interest.  A few months ago a
>friend of mine from Fore Systems told me about the 'ACTS' project. NASA and
>Ohio-State and quite a few others were doing research into the Gigabit
>Satelite Network. There was a test between Sony in Japan and I 'BELIEVE'
>JPL in Pasadena of hight def video transmissions over an OC-3 circuit. I
>heard something about a quasi commercial deployment of another ACTS
>project. Anybody heard anything about this? If enough birds like ACTS were
>sent up, this could be a boon for ISP's maybe. Of course I live in this
>ideal world where everybody is reasonable, intelligent, and well yea I know
>things are just quite the opposite. 

Which type of satellite network was talked about? If we're talking the
big, far-away GEO satellites, my guess is that the latency involved
would kill such a project. OTOH, LEO satellites could work (see:
Teledesic), but involve a massive investment and lots of satellites.

- Jakob