Broadcasting

The new technology of direct-broadcast satellite television is replacing transmission over the airwaves with transmission by satellite signals beamed to the home from space. Like cable television, despite its separation from conventional airwave broadcasting, the new technology has generated legal controversy.

To maintain constant, direct contact between itself and the recipients of its signals, a satellite must hold a geostationary orbit directly above Earth's equator at an altitude of 22,300 miles. (A geostationary orbit is an orbit that keeps the satellite's position fixed with respect to Earth.) The controversy surrounding satellite broadcasting comes not from any limit on the number of signals it can send but instead from the physical limitation of these geostationary orbits.

The world saw its first geostationary satellite launched by the United States in 1963; as of 1992, the United States had 30 geostationary satellites orbiting Earth. By the mid-1980s, the United States and other developed countries were quickly filling the equatorial orbit with satellites. Many developing countries feared that by the time they had developed the technology to put up their own satellites, the zone of geo-stationary orbit in space would be filled and they would be forced to buy broadcast time from countries owning satellites that were already in orbit. In 1985, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), an agency of the UNITED NATIONS, established new procedures that would represent the interests of these developing countries.

The ITU originally established a first-come, first-serve policy regarding the assignment of geostationary orbits. The World Administrative Radio Conference of 1985 upheld the continuation of this policy but also voted to guarantee at least one geostationary orbit to each country that was a member of the ITU. The decisions of the 1985 conference were finalized by another session in 1988. Although these decisions supported the interests of the United States in part—it could continue filling geostationary orbits—they caused concern for the FCC. The satellite technology of the United States would not, after all, be allowed to grow unchecked. Orbits that the United States had once assumed would be its to use were reallocated to other countries. The decisions of the World Administrative Radio Conferences of the 1980s gave the FCC even greater cause for regulating the broadcast industry within the United States and for being more selective about who is granted geo-stationary orbits and a piece of a broadcast industry that by the year 2000 was expected to bring in more than $10 billion annually.