Satellites versus fibre optic cables

This paper compares the capacities and costs of the new fibre optic submarine cables and the forthcoming INTELSAT VI satellites. The results indicate that, contrary to generally accepted beliefs, satellites are cheaper than fibre optic cables on a per circuit point-to-point basis. Moreover, satellites are shown to possess the advantage of superior overall connectivity capability, in addition to simple point-to-point capacity. This is expected to be very important in the choice of future cost effective facilities.