An international organization established a small field office in a remote village in a Central African country. Outside the village a warehouse was built for the relief goods that the organization distributed to various camps nearby. The field office had a shortwave voice link to the organization's main office in the capital of the affected country, but the warehouse had no communications equipment. This was of course a problem, as a messenger had to be sent from the field office to the warehouse each time instructions concerning the arrival or the distribution of relief goods had to be given. The storekeeper in turn had to take a trip on his bicycle to the village each time he needed to inform the field office of the stock situation. He therefore asked the field office to provide a means of communication.

The field office forwarded the request to the country office in the capital, which in turn forwarded it to the organization's headquarters in Europe. There, the officer in charge of the operations in the Central African Country requested the administrative officer for procurement of telecommunication equipment for the warehouse, indicating the very isolated location of the latter. The request finally reached the central procurement service. Having no further details, this service concluded that communication with a remote location would best be ensured with a satellite link.

The first mobile satellite terminals had just become available, and at considerable expense one of these still very bulky units was purchased and shipped to the warehouse. The result: The storekeeper could now make phone calls to any subscriber of the global public telephone networks – in the early days of public satellite the cost for such a call was about 8 US Dollars per minute. What he could still not reach was the field office, which had no telephone. What he had had thought of was a pair VHF walky-talkies at a cost of maybe 5 % of the satellite terminal, allowing unlimited free calls between store and office. This vital part of the request, however, had simply been lost on the long way through the administration and without consultation of a telecommunication specialist.