Thin-route rural communications using Intelsat satellites

Application requirements exist and are growing in developing countries for telecommunications services that can be supplied best by use of satellite technology. Many of these requirements can be satisfied with one or two telephone circuits per earth station location. In many areas of the world, the only satellite capacity available to support these thin-route service requirements is in the Intelsat system. Small earth stations, suited economically and sized to provide the required thin-route service capacity, have not been common in the Intelsat system. However, Intelsat is recognizing the need for thin-route services and the opportunities that will develop for providing these services using small earth stations in the Intelsat system. This paper explores the potential advantages of continuously-variable-slope delta modulation (CVSD) voice encoding and the technical parameters of small earth stations suited for thin-route services, as well as the developments within Intelsat for responding to these service needs.