Glitch Zaps Pagers

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

May 20, 1998 / 4:29 PM EDT / CBS

Ah, the big satellite outage. Millions of pagers went silent, some radio and television transmission were interrupted, and some stations had to go off the air entirely because a $250 million communications satellite lost track of earth.

The satellite is the Galaxy IV, owned by the company PanAmSat, based in Greenwich, Connecticut. Its parent company is the huge international conglomerate Hughes Communicatons, based in Los Angeles.

Galaxy IV stopped relaying pager messages and media feeds around 6 p.m., eastern U.S. time Tuesday. What happened apparently was that the onboard control system failed, then a backup switch failed and the satellite rotated out of position. That is, out of position in relation to where it was supposed to be over the earth.

Paging companies voice-mail functions were still operating, but pagers didn't vibrate or beep to indicate to pager-toters that a message had been received.

It is estimated that 80 to 90 percent of all U.S. pager users lost service.

There are about 40, maybe 45 million U.S. pager users overall. All of which reminds us how pager-intensive America has become.

Nearly all doctors use pagers. Many police and other law enforcement agencies use them extensively.

Then there are such users as gasoline stations with pay-at-the-pump machines for credit cards. This satellite screw-up knocked them out, too... a lot of them. Then there were, still are in some cases, the problems of radio and television stations. Some public radio stations have had to go off the air. A large part of Indidana lost last night's Pacers-Bulls basketball playoff game on radio.

Those who own and operate the Galaxy IV satellite have been scrambling to reposition the crippled bird, and to shift some if not all of its functions to another satellite. They have about l7 satellites in orbit, just this one company.

One of the things this reminds us about is how dependent we have become on technology, everything from computers to pagers to satellites. And, in a way, how dependable American technology is. The fact that this kind of thing seldom happens is, in a way, reassuring.

But in many other ways, it is at least a bit unsettling. One small glitch, one...in this case..two small malfunctions...and zip, 40 to 45 million pagers are zapped. One company's one satellite gets messed up, and the effect is nationwide and beyond.

In the age of techonolgy, in the information era, it can happenÂ…and did.