Microstation

As regards satellite data service networks, Alcatel offers FASTAR consisting of a hub which can manage thousands of easily installable microstations, easily portable and spread over user sites.

The tables that held their three Sun microstations were made from doors bought at a hardware store.

Each message contains an address field that identifies the microstation for which the message is intended. All microstations receive the TDM stream and filter out the messages not intended for their own use.

Freedom Forum's Paul McMasters calls microstation operators "the broadcast equivalent of the old anonymous pamphleteers or alternative newspapers."

"The obstacle course that the F.C.C. has established for licensing full-power commercial broadcasters is so daunting and overwhelming,” writes Lou Hiken, “that no microstation could ever pass muster in that context. It is as if the government demanded that mothers taking splinters out of their childrens'^([sic]) fingers comply with the regulatory requirements for an institution engaging in heart surgery."

If the FCC is so concerned about chaos on the airwaves, radio activists asked, then why didn't it simply allocate a section of the broadcast spectrum for microstations and then issue licenses?