| | Communications satellite (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22) |
 | | The United States launched their own geosynchronous communication satellites afterward, with Western Union launching their Westar 1 satellite in 1974, and RCA Americom launching Satcom 1 in 1975. |
 | | It was Satcom 1 that was instrumental in helping early cable TV channels such as WTBS (now TBS Superstation), HBO, CBN (now ABC Family Channel), and The Weather Channel become successful, because these channels distributed their programming to all of the local cable TV headends using the satellite. |
 | | The reason that Satcom 1 was so widely used is because it had twice the communications capacity of Westar 1 (24 transponders as opposed to Westar 1's 12), which resulted in less transponder usage costs. |
| www.worldhistory.com /wiki/C/Communications-satellite.htm (1013 words) |