I found myself on the other side of the interview process in early December when I was contacted by Al Jazeera English to comment on a story about a grassroots effort to buy the TerreStar-1 satellite from the bankrupt operator TerreStar Networks. The group behind the effort, ahumanright.org, says “access to information is a human right,” and if the acquisition is successful, the group wants to move the satellite in order to provide Internet access to underdeveloped areas of the globe.
According to its Web site, the group’s stated goal is to fill in the communication gaps around the globe for the 5 billion people it claims do not have access to information. Kosta Grammatis, a visiting researcher at MIT Media Labs and a founder of ahumanright.org, told Al Jazeera English he wants to move the satellite, “over the country where they think it would be most useful.”
By the time this issue went to press, more than $28,000 had been pledged. The goal for the organizers at ahumanright.org is to raise $150,000, which it hopes will demonstrate to large-scale investors that the organizers are serious about this plan.
When informed about this effort, my first thought was that it stands no chance. A lot of money already has been spent developing TerreStar-1 and placing it in orbit. EchoStar Corp., TerreStar’s largest secured creditor, is providing the satellite operator $75 million to help it operate while in bankruptcy and is supporting other efforts to help TerreStar emerge from Chapter 11. EchoStar would not be going through these efforts unless it continues to see the profit potential offered by TerreStar-1.
My second thought was that the effort by ahumanright.org is certainly admirable. It may sound trite, but perhaps if more people were as passionate as those behind this effort, the world would be a better place.
But this is not just a cheap publicity stunt. For its effort to buy TerreStar-1, donations are being accepted through the Web site, www.buythissatellite.org, and ahumanright.org is being advised by officials such as Noah Samara, founder of XM Radio and Worldspace Satellite Radio, as well as officials from Deutsche Telekom and Tata Consultancy Services, and the published plan of action acknowledges that this most likely will be a difficult, expensive and time-consuming process. Real thought and effort have been put into this proposal, and regardless of the outcome, there is a lesson to be learned.
The people behind ahumanright.org do not believe that satellite broadband is the only way to provide this service, but they certainly are smart enough to know that one way to solve a problem is to take advantage of existing opportunities. That puts them ahead of many politicians and technologists, who are more than willing to acknowledge the digital divide but seeming not willing to take advantage of what existing satellites have to offer.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the United States, where satellite-based solutions often are dismissed as not capable of providing the necessary speed requirements — even though satellite speed is better than no service at all. And the U.S. government set aside just $100 million — out of a pot of $7.2 billion — for satellite projects.
Obviously, many factors led to satellite services being left out of the picture, but it would be nice if those that claim to want to make information available to all would take a hint from a grassroots effort and look at the solution right in front of them.
