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Pager messages lost in space
Illustration of Galaxy 4 orbiting the Earth Crucial satellite causes widespread trouble
May 20, 1998
Web posted at: 8:18 a.m. EDT (1218 GMT)In this story:
(CNN) -- A wayward satellite in space kept millions of people on Earth from communicating with one another on Wednesday. The problem interrupted service to pager users and disrupted behind-the-scenes television transmissions in the United States and the Caribbean. It was not immediately clear how long the outage would last.
The Galaxy 4 satellite went out about 6 p.m. EDT Tuesday when its onboard control system and a backup switch failed.
Technicians were able to send commands to the craft but failed to restore its proper orientation toward Earth, said Robert Bednarek, senior vice president and chief technology officer for PanAmSat, which owns the satellite.
Dan Marcus, spokesman for PanAmSat, told CNN that communications with the satellite had been re-established but that service to customers had not been restored.
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One option being examined -- moving a backup satellite already in orbit into Galaxy 4's path -- could take several days, Marcus said in a live interview on Wednesday morning.
Pager problems
An industry official said a majority of pager companies rely on Galaxy 4. Scott Baradell, a spokesman for PageNet, one of several paging companies whose services were interrupted, estimated that 80 to 90 percent of the 40 million to 45 million U.S. pager users lost service.
CNN Interactive provides news headlines via pagers to some PageNet customers.
"This is the first time in 35 years that pagers have gone silent," said John D. Beletic, chairman and chief executive officer of Dallas-based PageMart Wireless Inc. "Virtually all paging companies have been affected."
The voice-mail function on pagers was still operating, but pagers were not beeping or vibrating to indicate a message was received. People with pagers must call in to see if any voice-mail messages were recorded.
The only customers not affected were those whose connections are through ground-based radio transmitters, he said.
Baradell said it would take about a day for his company to switch service to another satellite for most of its 10.5 million customers.
"You have to make adjustments to your system," he said. "If it's at all possible to get Galaxy 4 back in service, that's much preferred."
TV troubles, too
Several television and radio networks also use Galaxy 4 to transmit feeds to their affiliates. National Public Radio said it was unable to deliver its programming to affiliates via satellite but continued to broadcast on its Web page.
CBS radio and television, the Chinese Television Network and the CNN Airport Network also send feeds through Galaxy 4. In addition, news stories sent electronically by the Reuters news service were not being received by news organizations and other customers.
CBS relied most heavily on Galaxy 4 but said it had a backup plan switch over to the Galaxy 7 satellite.
The problem caused a disruption lasting a few seconds during the beginning of Tuesday's 6:30 p.m. EDT feed of the CBS Evening News. The image of anchorman Dan Rather was frozen on the screen while the audio continued normally. ABC News had a similar disruption at the same time. The networks switched to backup signals.
NBC reported its operations have not been affected.
Doctors on call on alert
The pager problem was of particular concern to doctors. Dr. Steve Dickens, a cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said he was spending the night at the hospital because of the problem.
"I have to tell (the hospital) what to do and how to respond," he said. "We have a good support staff, but protocol says they can't make a decision without first calling the doctor."
Dickens also talked to his brother, an obstetrician, about the pager problem. "He says it's a nightmare," Dickens said. "He's got eight ladies in labor right now. Thank God for cell phones."
Galaxy 4 was launched in June 1993 aboard an Ariane rocket. Its coverage area is primarily the United States and the Caribbean, according to PanAmSat's World Wide Web sites.
PanAmSat is 81 percent owned by Los Angeles-based Hughes Communications Inc.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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