Re: Estimate of satellite vs. Land-based traffic

[Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com>]

On Tue, 6 Jan 2009, Paul Donner wrote:
> WRT Kevin's query, if you are concerned about a solar incident and it's 
> affects on satcom, you might want to take a look at what user base (e.g. 
> which mobile users and what impact loss of comm will have on what they are 
> doing) is affected rather than understanding the volumes that are affected as 
> this might provide a much more thorough understanding of any impact.  But 
> that is merely my two cents worth.

Yep, consider the Galaxy IV satellite incident.  The loss of a single 
satellite had a significant impact on its user population for several
days/month.  Other satellites can be moved into an orbital slot, and
dishes can be re-pointed; but Galaxy IV lead to some interesting (i.e.
unexpected to some users) failures.  I'm not sure how many hospitals
realized their "in-house" pager systems relied on a satellite.