Facsimile transmission utilizing TDMA satellite service

In 1961, Dow Jones began printing The Wall Street Journal using high-speed facsimile scanners and recorders. High cost of transporting the papers to the customer was the motivating force, although the tradeoff was high lease cost of microwave facilities. In 1965, data compression techniques were applied to facsimile scanning and recording, reducing bandwidth requirements and lowering communications cost. Laboratory on-line tests with Comsat in 1973 demonstrated the viability of satellite transmission of compressed facsimile data. Designs are now complete for a network utilizing TDMA techniques which will demand assign voice/data information. Capacity is 60 Mb/sec; initially, four midwest plants and one east-coast plant will be coupled. By 1983, seventeen locations are expected to be interconnected through satellite and TDMA-equipped earth-based stations.