We take for granted much of our communications infrastructure these days. Satellites, for example are extremely important in relaying information across geographical boundaries. A satellite is simply defined as an object placed into orbit by humans, and the idea of satellites being launched into space surfaced in the late 1800 in a fictional work by Edward Everett Hale. The leap from there to the idea that satellites could be used for mass communication was taken by Arthur C Clarke. Yep, the science fiction writer. The man was nothing short of brilliant and he examined how satellites could be launched, and how they should orbit the world to create a network that could be used for global communications.Communication satellites or comsats are used for far more than simply routing television channels. Among other things, comsats are usefull for relaying any sort of communication to things like ships, vehicles, planes and radio....in many cases, using other technology for the communication would be impossible. For example, it would be impossible for a ship to be connected by wire for their communication, so they rely heavily on satellites for sending and receiving data and voice communications.The use of satellites in relaying television signal was in 1962 when signals from Europe were relayed over North America using the Telstar satellite. In 1965, the first commercial communication sotellite was launched. This was called Intelsat I and was given the nickname Early Bird which was in use until 1969.In Europe, two satellites handle most of the activity for television broadcast. These are the Astra and Hotbird satellites. In the UK, the first commercial broadcast was launched by Sky in 1989. British Satellite Broadcasting was launched in 1990 in competition to Sky. The two companies were in direct competition for a year until they merged into BSkyB, though this was really just a takeover of BSB by Sky.The Astra 2 satellite was launched in 1997 allowed the move to digital TV from analogue. The Astra 2 satellites are in an orbital position of 28.2 degrees east and this is the standard position that home users point their satellite reciever dishes towards these days.

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