(replying to wrong article -- didn't see the
original.)

In article ,
Marc 182 wrote:
In article ,
says...
Hello:
1. When you make an international phone call - say from NY to China -
how does the voice data travel ? Does it have to be send to the
satellite and then received at teh ground, some distance away, then
sent to another satellite till it reaches the destination country. ? I
mean is there any direct satellite to satellite communication. Or is
it always bouncing between teh satellite and the ground at an angle.

2. Is this true for international television programming too ? I know
there are live television from Arab countries, Japan etc, in US.

Multi-jump communications would create unacceptable delay in a voice
conversation due to the speed of light and the distance to the
satellites. Even a single jump causes a noticeable and annoying delay.
That's why trans-Atlantic/Pacific cables remain popular.

Note that I didn't actually answer your question, because I don't know.

The "unacceptable delays" come from Geostationary
satellites. Iridium for example does do
satellite-to-satellite switching in the sky. That
turns out to be a bad idea for other reasons
(basically the satellites are little telephone
switches in the sky), but in LEO it doesn't add
noticeable delays.

Greg.
--
Greg Rose
232B EC8F 44C6 C853 D68F E107 E6BF CD2F 1081 A37C
Qualcomm Australia: http://www.qualcomm.com.au