WASHINGTON — The devastating Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon pushed demand for satellite transponders to record levels as broadcasters from all over the world scrambled to cover the tragedy, according to officials with satellite operators and capacity brokers.
The sudden events in New York and Washington triggered an immediate surge in demand from news organizations and sparked an international deployment of satellite uplink equipment that could keep transponder usage extraordinarily high well into the future, these officials said.
"I’ve been in broadcasting for 40 years, and this is the biggest thing I’ve ever covered," said Bob Behar, president and chief executive officer of GlobeCast America Inc., Miami. Owned by France Telecom of Paris, GlobeCast arranges international satellite and fiber optic cable connections and provides transmission equipment and services to broadcasters.
The attacks also spurred demand by the U.S. military and other government departments for commercial satellite communications capacity, said Mary Ann Elliott, president and chief executive officer of Arrowhead Space & Telecommunications Inc., Fairfax, Va.
Since the disasters, Arrowhead has arranged for extra satellite capacity for the government, obtaining some transponder space on a temporary basis from commercial users with excess capacity, she said. In addition, Elliott’s firm has worked to increase the amount of bandwidth available to the government through commercial satellite links set up before the disasters.
Demand for commercial transponder capacity from other governments also could rise as a result of the attacks, according to Frank Genin, chief executive officer of the London Satellite Exchange. Since the attacks, the exchange has seen a large increase in the number of inquiries from government officials in Europe and the Americas interested in signing satellite leases, he said.
Part of the reason for the dramatic jump in demand for satellite capacity among news organizations is that individual television stations want to provide their own coverage of the rapidly unfolding events, said Dick Tauber, vice president of satellites and circuits for CNN in Atlanta. Beyond providing its own nonstop coverage of the attacks, CNN is distributing customized news feeds via satellite to hundreds of local TV stations across the United States, he said.
Even though CNN is using digital compression techniques — which increase the number of television channels a satellite transponder can accommodate — to the fullest, the network’s transponders are essentially full, Tauber said.
"This is the kind of story that’s so significant that you want to have your own presence and your own person telling it for your audience," Tauber said. "Anybody who’s selling transponder capacity is working [nonstop], and has extra staff and every seat filled."
Like other capacity resellers that serve an international clientele, GlobeCast is scrambling to deliver material to customers outside the United States.
Surging overseas demand caused GlobeCast to quickly exhaust its supply of C- and Ku-band transponders, Behar said, compelling it to acquire additional Ku-band capacity from satellite operators, including Washington-based Intelsat Ltd., to augment its already substantial inventory.
Many overseas news organizations that normally broadcast from the United States for predetermined blocks of time suddenly wanted access to U.S. news feeds virtually nonstop, jamming GlobeCast’s inventory of satellite transponders and fiber optic cable links, Behar said.
GlobeCast also had to use C-band satellite transponders to fill in for a more-economical fiber optic line connecting its facilities in New York and Los Angeles that was knocked out by the attacks, Behar said.
Jon Romm, general manager of satellite-capacity broker BT Broadcast Services in Washington said he is looking to lease additional transponders on spacecraft operated by New Skies Satellites NV, The Hague, Netherlands; Intelsat; PanAmSat, Wilton, Conn.; and GE American Communications Inc., Princeton, N.J.
He said the cancellation of major sporting events in the days following the terrorist strikes helped free some satellite capacity, which has been reassigned to carry news broadcasts
"I don’t ever remember having to move so fast and furious" to deal with a news story, Romm said.
PanAmSat is racing to keep up with demand for its services, said Scott Tagliarino, a spokesman for the satellite operator. He said 26 broadcasters from 14 countries collectively used more than 200 extra hours of satellite time within about a day of the assaults.
In addition, call volume at PanAmSat’s customer service center near Atlanta rose fivefold, reflecting extremely strong demand for satellite capacity, Tagliarino said. "The sheer enormity of this disaster and its worldwide effects vastly surpasses anything we’ve seen," he said.
Similarly, demand for satellite access is way up at Loral Skynet, said Micki LoMonaco, a spokeswoman for the Bedminster, N.J.-based satellite operator.
Intelsat also has seen demand increase substantially, as broadcasters look to transmit large amounts of video material to and from the United States and elsewhere, said Susan Gordon, a company spokeswoman.
Beyond connections directly involving U.S. locations, TV broadcasters covering the attacks want to move large amounts of video material within other parts of the world, Gordon said. Since the attacks, Intelsat’s sales of capacity for relatively short-term use, known in the satellite industry as occasional use, have jumped 700 percent in the Indian Ocean region, which includes parts of Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, she said.
Intelsat does not expect the demand to subside anytime soon because broadcasters have advised the satellite operator that they plan to transmit from multiple international locations as coverage of the attacks and their aftermath continues, Gordon said.
Occasional use traffic has doubled within Intelsat’s Atlantic Ocean region, which includes the eastern United States and Europe, although a good deal of transatlantic traffic travels over transponders leased full time by Intelsat to broadcasters on a long-term basis, Gordon said. Demand also is up over the Pacific Ocean, she added.
The terrorist strikes also increased traffic on the mobile satellite telephone system operated by Inmarsat of London, said Dominic Cook, a spokesman for the company. The collapse of the New York skyscrapers knocked out some terrestrial links in Manhattan, he said.
For about 24 hours after the disaster, Inmarsat saw an increase in usage of between 10 and 15 percent in the satellite beam that covers the eastern United States, according to Cook.
