Apr 3 1967
From The Space Library
Ford Foundation and AT&T submitted briefs to FCC on domestic comsat system. Ford Foundation brief sharply criticized ComSatCorp's plan for a domestic comsat system and asked that ComSatCorp's April 1 request for permission to develop an experimental system be denied. "To add to Comsat's authority the exclusive franchise for a domestic communications satellite system . . . would give the corporation a world monopoly. One entity would provide all communications satellite services. One company would be responsible for developing all satellite technology. One customer would procure all satellite equipment. A monopoly of this sort would be unprecedented. . . ." Ford suggested instead that the system be developed and initially operated by NASA so that technological knowledge could be gleaned without controversy over ultimate management or ownership. NASA could later be reimbursed by the entity finally chosen to operate the system. AT&T supported ComSatCorp's proposal, suggesting the system be linked to and integrated with present ground systems. Rejecting Ford Foundation's proposal for a separate non-profit satellite TV broadcast corporation whose income would support noncommercial TV, AT&T said that such proposals reflected parochial disregard for their effects on other satellite systems and terrestrial (land) microwave systems. . . . Installation of such limited systems would . . . jeopardize the existing public communications systems, both domestic and overseas, and would severely inhibit their necessary continued growth." (Text, Gould, NYT, 4/3/67, 1; W Star, 4/4/67)
Secretary of Transportation Alan S. Boyd addressed Sixth Annual Editorial Conference of Magazine Publishers Assn. and American Society of Magazine Editors in Washington, D.C.: "Today, April Third, is a memorable day in the history of communication. On this day, one hundred and seven years ago, the Pony Express began. . . . The Pony Express lasted only eighteen months. It was superseded by the transcontinental telegraph. And probably the managers of the Pony Express knew all along that that was going to happen. But they had customers who couldn't wait, who were willing to pay for a faster mail service. " . . . this episode illustrates the driving impatience of the American people for progress. . . . We're doing the same thing today in the aerospace industry. We're building the SST. We already have a grasp of the technology that will supersede the SST, fifteen or twenty years from now. But Americans are not the kind of people who'll passively wait for new developments. . . . They're engaged now in pushing jet aviation technology to its practical limits." (Text)
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