"less than global reach"

Question

The current teleport sector consists of four primary types of service providers, all with different strategies:

• In-house broadcasters - a limited number of broadcasters that have internal content distribution and management capabilities, which they continue to use. Because these in-house operations serve only one customer, and the customer's primary focus is producing rather than distributing or managing the content, these operations have limited capabilities. Dedicated in-house operations represent an expensive solution that is not cost effective and not easily scalable.

• Telcos - telecommunications companies, some with business units focused on satellite services. Many of these companies are relatively minor players on a global basis because they concentrate on a specific region, and are tied to their own terrestrial network. Due to a lack of focus on the satellite and broadcasting sectors, these companies have had difficulty reacting to the dynamic needs of the industry, although some have carved out specialized business units to focus on satellite services.

• Satellite fleet operators (hybrids) - satellite carriers that had typically offered only transmission, but which have recently begun to either acquire or partner with teleports and terrestrial fiber network operators to create a global hybrid network. These carriers are typically limited to their own satellite fleet, which means that they are limited geographically, are not network neutral, focus on providing transmission capacity and generally cannot offer content management services, and are reticent to compete with their customers who provide value-added services.

• Independents - traditional teleport operators founded by entrepreneurs to exploit the liberalization of satellite services in major markets. Traditional teleport operators have continued to innovate and prosper by reacting to the changing needs of customers, but generally do not offer a comprehensive solution via hybrid satellite-terrestrial fiber networks. Many of them are relatively small, resulting in less than global reach, inability to scale to meet customer needs, only limited savings for their customers, and a lack of resources to invest in supporting emerging technologies.

-- Prospectus: RRSat Global Communications Network

Can I use "less global reach", "narrower than global reach" or "shorter than global reach" instead?

Answer 1

In that example, the expression less than global reach means not comprehensive coverage or incomplete coverage, or insufficient in extent of coverage.

The three alternatives you propose are poor matches for that meaning. A crucial issue is that the type of extent being discussed is idiomatically conceived of as a matter of area, hence my use of the word "coverage". "Less global reach" implies a perimeter, which is close; "narrower" implies width and "shorter" implies distance, neither of which is the right physical metaphor.

Answer 2

Global reach means your service can reach everywhere on earth. Less than that means you cannot reach everywhere on earth (less than everywhere).

So the usage less than global reach is appropriate to use in your example. Your suggestions don't work because:
narrower deals with width (not appropriate on a globe)
shorter deals with height (again not appropriate on a globe)

For less global reach, than is needed because you are making a comparison between global reach and the reach of the mentioned service providers.