the opposite of today's situation with limited payload masses. Wide-band, high-rate information transfer services can be brought to such users as small libraries and to businesses heretofore unable to afford the expensive ground equipment now required. Initially, the service may be used to link small libraries to a large central data bank. Think of what it would mean for a small library to have the contents of the entire New York Public Library and/or the Library of Congress available at its data terminal! The public library systems have had enormous impact upon the American educational system over the years. Imagine the impact of expanding these libraries. However, there are millions of projected users in the business community where, as Thomas A. Edison discovered, information itself is usually far more valuable than the actual subject of that information. Business is already becoming deeply involved in large scale data transfer, and this is going to increase in the future. Individual home useage in connection with the growing availability of domestic minicomputers was not projected but could be expected to be very large, particularly if the library link is available. The technology is feasible and design studies have started. Such a satellite might be in service by 1985. MARKET SURVEY INFORMATION SERVICES • REVENUE FROM BUSINESSES BY EMPLOYING MULTI-BEAM ANTENNAS, PROVIDE ACCESS TO LARGE LIBRARIES FOR SMALLER LIBRARIES AND BUSINESSES. 10 20 Best-case revenues for the end of Year One are anticipated at $3.2-million while least-case revenues would be $2.4-million. Useage builds rapidly as more competetive ground station equipment becomes available at decreasing costs in a competetive marketplace. Library useage has saturated at the end of Year Ten while business useage is still increasing at Year Fifteen. Portable Personal Communications: A large, high-power comsat in geosynchronous orbit would permit the use of small, low-powered, battery-operated pocket or wrist transmitters/receivers on the ground, providing private personal communications between any two individuals possessing the devices or between the individual and the existing telecommunications network. Sufficient frequency allocation above the UHF band is assumed but is also a political factor that may cause delay. The technology to make this product and service available will exist within ten years. To determine the market potential, analogous product costs for small, hand-held electronic devices were examined. These included calculators, digital watches, and CB walkie-talkies. The resulting average price spread ranged from $300 at introduction to $30 at saturation. Two segments of the market exist: the market for the device, and the market for the service. Market size for the device and cost-per-call were subjected to a trade-off analysis to assure an early return on investment. |