Scenarios of integration of satellite systems in the ISDN

Several of the ways in which satellites could cooperate with the implementation of the IDN, the ISDN and alternative network architectures have been reviewed. To convert these ideas into reality a number of technical, economical and political problems will have to be overcome. Of these, the technical issues seem the easiest to resolve. In spite of all these problems, the future of satellites is brighter than very often perceived. The serious competition from optical fibres has obliged satellite systems to find the roles for which they are best-suited. In ten or twenty years, launchers will be several times more powerful and competition between launching systems is likely to bring the prices down substantially. With larger payloads in orbit, satellite systems will be even more powerful and economic than nowadays. The design of networks of the future should not neglect this