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Ultronics vs. Quotron

The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis blocked Ultronics from winning a historic first. In July 1962 AT&T launched the first commercial satellite (Telstar) to transmit television and telephone voice channels between the U.S. and England and France. This was a non-synchronous satellite which circled the earth in an elliptical orbit of about 2.5 hours, such that it gave only about 20 minutes of communication between the U.S. and Europe on each pass. Ultronics arranged with AT&T to use one of its voice channels to transmit U.S. stock prices to Paris in October 1962. All of the arrangements were made-a Stockmaster unit was installed in the Bache brokerage office on Rue Royale and all of the American Stockbrokers and the press and television were ready for this historic event. About two hours before the pass the stock transmission was cancelled because U.S. president John Kennedy was going to use the pass to send his speech to France concerning the Cuban missile crisis.