Jul 20 1979
From The Space Library
The Washington Star reported that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had voted to let American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) and GTE Satellite Corporation, operators of the Comstar satellite system, integrate their domestic communications satellite and ground networks. Before the decision, AT&T could use only ground lines to transmit private line communications. The FCC had put a moratorium on AT&T in 1972 to keep it from cutting circuit costs and further dominating the telecommunications market; since then, the company had been able to use its satellites for some phone service but not for transmission of commercial private-line service. AT&T Comstar craft were currently providing the U.S. mainland with communications to Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
FCC said AT&T would have to file rate schedulers if it operated a satellite only service; the company would integrate the satellites into its "national telephone network," the Washington Star said. American Satellite Corporation, which already had an operating satellite, wanted the FCC to limit AT&T use of its satellites to services provided through separate subsidiaries; Satellite Business Systems had asked FCC to ensure that AT&T did not fund its satellite services with money from telephone ratepayers. (IV Star, July 20/79, E-10)
Today newspaper said that representatives of Western Union and Hughes Aircraft Company had announced plans to launch Westar 3, an $8.3 million spacecraft bought in 1974 as a ground-based spare to supplement Westar 1 and Westar 2, launched in 1974, and now in orbit over the equator south of Dallas and southwest of San Francisco, respectively. Western Union said Westar 3, needed because of increasing demands on the other two satellites, would be stationed over the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific west of Ecuador. Western Union had made "substantial savings" in buying the spacecraft five years ago when prices were lower: the same item would cost about $14 million if built today. The firm was holding electronic parts for a fourth Westar in a Delaware warehouse. NASA would launch Westar 3 on a Delta from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on or about August 9, it said in a release. (Today, July 20/79, 16A; NASA (press kit) Release 79-96)
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