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that by the end of 1998, there will be approximately 3,500 maritime and 3,000 land mobile terminals in operation.

A key factor in the growth of maritime B service is new installa- tions, which are largely impacted by the increase in shipbuilding over the past few years. Maritime commissionings are expected to continue to grow beyond the year 2005. At that time, more than 16,000 terminals are expected to be in use. Two other factors are positively impacting the growth of

COMSAT-B: The first is compli- ance with the Global Marine

Distress and Safety System (GMDSS), which is slated to become mandatory for larger ships by February 1999. The second is the U.S. Federal Communications

Commission support for transi- tioning to B service to help pre- serve the radio spectrum.

There has been a great deal of discussion about hand-held and lap-top sized terminals which will enable talk via satellite in much the same way as today's popular cellular phones. However, these technologies do not yet offer the full satellite communications func- tionality — including fax, telex and data transmission - that B service offers. An Inmarsat-B terminal, with high speed data capability, can transmit more than 30 times faster than a terminal at 2.4 kbps.

It costs more per minute to send a data file or other transmission at 64 kbps than 2.4 kbps, but the quicker transmission rate helps to make up for the increase in cost per minute. This can make the 64 kbps data transmission a more cost effective solution. Assume, for example, that a high speed 64 kbps data transmission (HSD) is charged at the rate of $12 per minute, a medium speed 9.6 kbps data transmission (MSD) is charged at the rate of $4.55 per minute and a low speed 2.4 kbps data transmission (LSD) is charged at the rate of $4.45 per minute. At these rates, the trans- mission in data format of a one- page spread sheet consisting of 750,000 bytes of information would cost approximately $1.88 (and take 10 seconds to transmit) using HSD; $5.92 (one minute and 18 seconds) using MSD; and $23.18 (five minutes and 12 sec- onds) using LSD. Obviously, the cost and transmission time differ- ences become even more dramatic as the size of the data file or docu- ment being transmitted grows. For

October, 1998 example, transmitting a detailed picture consisting of 400,000 bytes of information would cost $10.00 and take less than one minute using HSD, compared with $31.60 and approximately seven minutes using MSD, and more than $123.00 and 28 minutes using

LSD. The combination of price and

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Circle 245 on Reader Service Card

Circle 289 on Reader Service Card 23