Tags: TerreStar, Satellite Broadband, Dish Network
Publication: TheRegister.co.uk
Publication Date: 01/02/2013

CEO and Founder Kosta Grammatis. Image credit: AHumanRight.org

In 2010, Kosta Grammatis started a project to buy U.S. communications satellite TerreStar-1 from the bankrupted company TerreStar Corp. The idea behind “Buy This Satellite” was to relocate the spacecraft, develop inexpensive Earth stations and provide bandwidth to impoverished communities in Africa.

Grammatis set up a website to raise funds for the project, and was able to collect $67,000 in donations from the public. Unfortunately, the cost for the spacecraft was more than $1 billion.

As Dish Network bought TerreStar’s satellite to reframe it into mobile-phone bandwidth, it was game over for Grammatis; but he still had the $67,000. The media seemed to have forgotten about him, the project and the donated money. According to the British website The Register, they have been the first to contact Grammatis about this since the plan of buying the satellite was off.

Apparently the money for Buy This Satellite was used for the past years to fund Grammatis’ lobbying activities in favor of broader access to the internet. For instance, he attended the World Economic Forum to practically beg satellite companies for bandwidth contributions for his new plot. He wanted to create a “Bandwidth Bank” with unused satellite capacity, and share it with the world.

As anyone familiar with the satellite industry would expect, firms were not too open to the idea. The core business of the satellite industry is highly risky. Companies invest billions of dollars into projects that will not pay off for decades, so they try to minimize all other risks.

For 18 unfruitful months Grammatis tried to pursue similar ideas, spending most of the donated money. With the rest of it he helped fund a documentary about the impact laptops can have on a Peruvian village, and other projects.

He now has a new scheme to pursue but he’s not counting on raising funds online. Although that wouldn’t be such a crazy idea since no one seemed to care much about how he allocated the money raised for Buy This Satellite.

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