SATTELITES AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS

        Our world is becoming an increasingly complex place in which, we are very dependent on other people and organiza­tions. An event in some distant part of the globe can rapidly and significantly affect the quality of life in our home coun­try.

        This increasing dependence, on both a national and inter­national scale, forced us to create systems that can respond immediately to dangers, enabling appropriate defensive or offensive actions to be taken. These systems are operating all around us in military, civil, commercial and industrial fields.

        A worldwide system of satellites has been created and it is possible to transmit signals around the globe by bouncing them from one satellite to an earth station and then to another sa­tellite and so on.

       Originally designed to carry voice messages, they are able to carry hundreds of thousands of separate simultaneous calls. These systems are being adopted to provide for business com­munications, including the transmission of voice and facsim­ile messages, data and video data.

It is probable that future wide use of satellites in the area of telecommunications will provide a great variety of infor­mation services to transmit directly into our homes, possibly including personalized electronic mail. The electronic compu­ter is at the heart of many such systems, but the role of tele­communications is not less important. There will be a further convergence between the technologies of computing and tele­communications. The change of this kind will lead us to the database culture, the cashless society, the office at home, the gigabit-per-second data network.

        One cannot doubt that the economic and social impact of these concepts will be very significant. Already, advanced sys­tems of communication are affecting both the layman and the technician.   .

       The new global satellite-communication systems offer three kinds of service.

       The first one is voice messages. Satellite telephones are able to make calls from anywhere on the Earth to anywhere else. That makes them especially useful to use in remote, third- world villages (some of which already use stationary satellite telephones), for explorers. Today’s mobile phones depend on earth-bound transmitters, whose technical standards vary from country to country. Satellite telephones can solve this problem, but it is not a cheap service.

        The second service is messaging. Satellite messages, have the same global coverage as satellite telephones, but carry text alone, which is extremely useful for those with laptop; com­puters. As we see, the Internet works in space too. The, only problem for ordinary users is one-way transmissions. This problem is solved by using combine transmissions, when you make a call using land communications and receive ordered information through your satellite plate.

         The third service is tracking. Voice and messaging systems also tell their users where they are to within a few hundred meters. Combined with the messaging service, the location service could help rescue teams, to find lost adventurers, the police to find stolen cars, exporters to follow the progress of cargoes and so on. Satellite systems provide better positioning information to anyone who has a receiver for their signals.

         To my thinking, satellite method of communication is the future for all kind of telecommunications.

QUESTIONS:

1. Can some events in some distant part of the globe rapid­ly and significantly affect the quality of life in our home сountry?

2. Why are we forced to create systems that can respond immediately to dangers, enabling appropriate defensive or offensive actions to be taken nowadays?

3. Has a worldwide system of satellites been already crea­ted?

4. What does a worldwide system of satellites provide?

5. What services do the new global satellite-communication systems offer?

VOCABULARY:

increasingly — все больше и больше

complex — комплекс

dependent — подчиненный, зависящий

the globe — мир, земной шар

to affect — воздействовать

scale — масштаб

to force — заставлять, принуждать

to respond — отвечать, реагировать

immediately — немедленно, тотчас же

to enable — давать возможность или право на что-л.

appropriate — подходящий, соответствующий

offensive — агрессивный, наступательный

worldwide system — всемирная система

to transmit — передавать, транслировать

to bounce — ад. передавать по цепочке

to design — разрабатывать, предназначать

separate — отдельный

simultaneous — одновременный

facsimile message — факсимильное послание, факс

convergence — конвергенция, схождение в одной точке

to lead (past led, p.p. led) — вести, направлять, приводить

network — система, сеть

to doubt — сомневаться

impact — толчок, удар, импульс

concept — концепция

significant — значительный, важный, существенный

layman — непрофессионал, любитель

to offer — предлагать

to make (past made, p.p. made) call — звонить

remote — отдаленный, далекий; дистанционный

explorer — исследователь

to depend on — зависетьот

transmitter — передатчик

to vary — изменяться, меняться, разнообразить

to solve — решать

coverage — покрытие, зона действия, охват

laptop — лептоп, небольшой портативный компьютер

one-way transmission — односторонняя передача

tracking — трекинг, отслеживание

within — в, в пределах

rescue — спасение

adventurer — искатель приключений, путешественник

stolen — украденный

receiver — приемник