Direct Television Broadcasting and the Quest for Communication Equality

In the immediate past modem communication means such as efficient telephone and television systems have been viewed as the luxuries of well developed economies. Rapid advances in the field of communications and computer technologies have changed this basic outlook. Now, it is possible to use these technologies as tools of economic growth in both developed and developing countries. This is primarily because cost has gone down while efficiency has gone up.

A recent article concerning small computers demonstrates the point. "If the aircraft industry had developed as spectacularly as the computer industry over the past twenty-five years, a Boeing 767 would cost $500 today, and it would circle the globe in twenty minutes on five gallons of fuel."