 venture between IBM, Aetna Life and Casualty, and Comsat Gen- eral. IBM may well have designed its SNA, for years the backbone of its data communications strategy, as a way to work with satellites; its predecessor proto- col Bisync was overly sensitive to delays. SBS service began in 1981. But it did not exactly set the world on fire. Satellite service is crippled by the laws of physics. Geosynchronous satel- lites sit 22,240 miles above the equator. Radio waves travel no faster than 186,000 miles per second. (It's not just a good idea, it's the law!) The resultant delay is annoying for some data applications, and even more annoying to voice conversations. Satellites are thus primarily used for one-way broadcasting, for accessing very remote areas such as islands, and for specialized data applications that can tolerate the delay, such as point-of-sale systems. SBS was eventually bought by MCI, adding a few more satellites to its constellation. Teleport Cracks the NYNEX Monopoly The first competitive access provider grew out of the Teleport, an office facility in Staten Island, N.Y., with its own cutesy name no doubt inspired by the likes of Star Trek, where Merrill Lynch built a data center near a satellite ground sta- tion. Created in conjunction with partner Western Union, the Teleport Com- munications Group (TCG) also pulled fiber optics into Manhattan and Brooklyn, providing an alternative to NYNEX. Merrill Lynch was essentially bypassing NYNEX and taking in revenue from its neighbors at the same time, while laying the groundwork for a future competitive local telecommunications industry. The Wall Street area of Manhattan was, of course, one of the densest concentrations of bandwidth utilization in the world. If any low-hanging fruit was ripe for plucking, this was it. But Merrill Lynch was not really in the telecom business, and Western Union was in severe decline, SO a majority interest in TCG was acquired by Competitive Access Providers, the Costly Way to Local Competition several cable companies, includi