by Peter J. Brown

As I was sitting here on my snow-covered island awaiting news of a possible broadband via satellite breakthrough, the Bezos space connection suddenly blossomed into view. I was quite unprepared to hear news that billionaire Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, has plans to set up shop in West Texas, buying an enormous tract of land so that more humans can be propelled into space.

Apparently, a Seattle warehouse on East Marginal Way is now the headquarters for the Bezos venture known as Blue Origin, and the fact that Bezos is chasing or at least thinking about competing with folks like Richard Branson in the private spaceship sector is something to behold.

Bezos embodies the dramatic shift that has taken place in the Northwest. This is where, not so long ago, we could detect signals from the Teledesic camp, for example, which pointed to constellations in motion and the pursuit of expansive almost mythical broadband dreams. Of course, cosmic blueprints and conservative business models do not always mesh, and while we have moved on, there is an unrealized agenda still looming.

The promise of Blue Origin may have little to do with IP multimedia, but it has a lot to do with resources. While Mr. Bezos is free to spend his money however he wants, there is a continuing debate over what it is we want as a nation when it comes to broadband, and what we expect in terms of outcomes in an increasingly broadband driven world.

If our read of Blue Origin is correct, Bezos appears to be looking up at space and the opportunity he sees has little to do with connectivity, or bandwidth, at least for now. He has drawn a line in the West Texas dirt, and determined that from that point, launching minds and bodies into space might be a whole lot more rewarding than launching satellites.

So now we move east to Chicago, where a small but vocal group of local ministers have banded together to form the Ministerial Alliance Against the Digital Divide (MAADD.org). And they are not the least bit concerned about fancy custom crafted flying machines. No, they have a different focus altogether in the form of fiber-optic phone lines. MAADD is mad and indeed getting madder about what SBC Communications might be up to in terms of mapping out the broadband future of the Windy City.

Another discriminatory scheme disguised as technological progress by SBC is how the Reverend James L. Demus III, co-director of MAADD described it. MAADD has locked onto what it perceives as a $6 billion project that will bring great broadband benefits to the wealthy, but little or no benefit to the less affluent residents of the city. No franchise agreement in this instance sets the stage for digital red-lining, according to MAADD.

Now, while Via Satellite is not exactly equipped to diagnose Chicago politics, the notion of a digital Red Line being drawn whether miles away or right down the center of Michigan Avenue is something we are prepared to delve into.

The process of cherry-picking customers and bypassing poor and minority neighborhoods is not something that bears exclusively on MAADD or the residents of Chicago. Issues of access are being addressed and hopefully it will be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction in Chicago.

But the process is not really a process at all on a national level. At least we cannot detect a set of realistic objectives or goals that make the red lines or the attached issues go away.

Sure, we have heard all about rural initiatives that are designed to jump start the broadband age in small towns and rural areas, and lots of schools and libraries are a whole lot better off today in this regard, but thus far the jury is out and likely to remain out for some time to come as far as a level playing field is concerned when it gets down to households.

Public policy shortcomings, empty rhetoric and dark fiber aside, the satellite industry can do little now other than sit on the sidelines and hope that someone in the private sector like WildBlue Communications will provide a compelling solution. Will it prove to be affordable in millions of middle or low income households where few if any broadband choices exist? That is an open question that may or may not bear on the business model of WildBlue.

By the way, this column is not about finger pointing. It is about the fact that the new faces who want to be movers and shakers in the private space sector are attracting headlines for talk of future manned missions and not for making waves when it comes to progressive long-term moves involving broadband in the sky. That is just the way it is as we ease into the 21st century.

One final note, readers may recall that a few months ago, I awarded a quasi public service award to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for their launch in September 2004 of Edusat, a satellite designed exclusively to give distance education a big boost in India.

Well, the most recent reviews of the Edusat program are slowly trickling out of India and they strongly suggest that despite the presence of a brand new satellite high overhead, ready to beam educational content to classrooms all over the Indian subcontinent, much needs to be done on the ground in the form of programming, hub activations, two- way receive hardware, and training, among other things.

To make a long story short, Edusat has only a seven year lifespan, money is tight and the clock is ticking. ISRO still deserves an award no matter what happens next; however, there appears to be a noticeable problem in terms of synchronizing public policy with a promising technology already in orbit. Sounds familiar?

Peter J. Brown is Via Satellite’s Senior Multimedia & Homeland Security Editor. He also volunteers as a satellite technology and communications advisor to the Maine Emergency Management Agency.