yes,I know im evil =)

A number of orbits are possible though all have quite different operating consequences on use, law and design. For reasons I have not found it appears GEO is preferred in this project. That might not be an entirely straight forward choice. By category:

Geostationary Orbit - GEO
On the plus side there is no doubt that this is well established technology. It is however a long climb up the gravitational well and more importantly it is a limited resource. At an altitude of ca. 35800 km, ground being about 6400 km from centre of Earth we get a circumference of ca. 26400 km. Positions in GEO are allocated in degrees, one degree spans 735 km. Some positions are more popular than others, particularly where a meridian spans numerous countries. Also these are used for several kinds of satellites (Broadcasting, point-to-point, earth resource monitoring, sciences, weather, various military puposes and more) so you might have to share a position with, say, 10 other users. Add some margins for station keeping (bumper-to-bumper is not the way to drive in the skies) and suddenly a satellite sized in the 10s of km in span is not that popular with other countries.

A quick Googling shows there are discussions in the UN about rights of access:
http://www.google.com/search?q=UN+geostationary+orbit

As for claims - http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1309/is_v23/ai_4330012

Geostationary orbit: The Sub-Committee noted a decision of the World Administrative Radio Conference declaring itself not competent to deal with specific principles concerning demands made by equatorial countries to have sovereignty/jurisdiction over segments of the geostationary orbit superadjacent to their territories, and to preserve those segments for the “opportune and appropriate utilization of the orbit by all States, particularly the developing countries’.

As value increases one should expect more of this. What they cannot reach or use themselvs they might still feel like renting out to others. Debate has been gong on for decades, one should not expect resolution anytime soon.

A SBSP satellite in GEO would need to be articulated: one part always facing the sun (one rotation per year), the other facing the receiver on Earth (one rotation per day). Making this Earth facing platform a slot in platform for other users would limit the congestion, provide plenty of power, save in station keeping and provide good will.

A position in GEO would mean a grazing angle at higher latitudes and thus larger rectennas for microwave power downlink.

Highly Elliptical Orbits - Molniya and Tundra
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_elliptical_orbit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tundra_orbit

These feature apogee dwell so they appear to rest for a long period in one area in the sky, typically at higher latitudes which would mean a more normal angle of incidense and thus smaller rectenna farm. These are little used, are less limited than GEO and therefore far less controversial.

On the negative side is the fact these pass through the van Allen belts and would need to be radiation protected. A cohosting facility means someone could set up an alternative to GPS (using high precision clocks for say DAB broadcast in the L-band, not sure if the US would like that). Then again it could also be used to amend GPS coverage significantly since DOP around 60 degrees latitude is worse than many other latitudes. http://personal.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/constellations/tables/orbitfig.gif

Articulation would be very different from GEO, from what I can see it would be less motion thus less wear.

Such orbits would be useful for mirrors relaying power beams to latitudes far outside the equator and for added flexibility when extra power is needed. Such relay systems were studies during the 80’s as part of the SDI, so I expect the DOD to have plenty of information on how best to accomplish this, not sure if it is all openly available though.

Halo Orbits - SE L2
Well, let’s face it: this is my hobby horse… Anyway, orbit is basically vacant, no controversies yet. Articulation is simpler, basically the incoming sunlight is mostly parallel with the power downlink, be it in the form of microwaves or as lighht. This means minimal mechanics and minimal wear.

More importantly by having a passive outer rim (mirrors) and any active parts in the shadow of the Earth you are protected from solar storms by up to 12000 km of rocks. A km scale solar panel would have to be turned edge on to protect from such storms and the angular momentum is simply enormous. That problem simply is not there with an annular mirror as I have proposed.

In addition to the business case, I argue for a Societal Case discussion. This technological challenge is nested in social and political contexts, from the use of solar system resources, to the global, national,region, city, town, family, and down to the individual consumer. Understanding the impact of this, early, is as important as the technological challenge, for technology choice and options are never ever divorced from the societal contexts in which the decisions are made.
Kat Connell