Page 41 - Communications Satellites Global Change Agents

1. SATELLITES AS WORLDWIDE CHANGE AGENTS 17

and computer networks, that speed up the process of conflicting knowledge and
values both within countries and across the broad reaches of our globe. In some
ways, we have been warped by a new kind of electronic reality. This has been
called telegeography. Within this concept, distance (at least in the modern com-
mercial world) no longer has much meaning, and it is culture, intellect, and speed
of electronic connection that now create dysfunctional gaps in our planetary sys-
tem, not physical separation.
In the age of broadband networking, New York, Tokyo, Paris, Singapore,
Berlin, Moscow, and London are closer together than Okmulgee, Oklahoma is to
Arkadelphia, Arkansas or Zamengoe, Cameroon is to Gaborone, Gabon.
Digital communications machines, for better or worse, now integrate our
global business systems and many national and ethnic societies. Our versatile
space communications systems link together our TV sets, telephones, GPS receiv-
ers, computers, terabyte databases, and portable Internet phones. This process has
made our world smaller and more intimate in new and different ways. We have
now seen the advent of new and more powerful satellite systems. Truly anybody
can stay in touch anytime and anywhere—if they want to do so. Via the
Worldspace satellite system, it is possible to receive hundreds of radio channels in
the world's most remote rain forest or arid desert. Via mobile satellite systems
such as Inmarsat, Thuraya, New ICO, or New Iridium (to name only a few), one
can use a specially equipped cell phone or lap top transceiver to communicate to
the world or link to Internet from ships at sea, from aircraft in the stratosphere, or
from the most remote island—and for an increasingly low cost.
Furthermore, billions of people can choose what they wish to watch on any
one of hundreds of satellite TV channels. They can do this by direct satellite,
satellite-fed cable TV, or simply by going to the Internet to watch their favorite
show via "video streaming" or listen to their favorite music by CD down-
loading. Ultimately one will be able to watch virtually any movie ever made via
the right connection on the Web. Today, people in developed countries and a
growing number of those in developing countries can quickly connect to tens of
thousands of "information networks" to learn about virtually any conceivable
subject or watch any form of entertainment or amusement. Censorship will have
become obsolete.
Soon we may be paying more for screening out unwanted information than for
connecting to the global network. Yet those without access to the networks or
those unable to pay to access information may be pushed further away from mo-
dernity. These isolated communities may not rue being isolated from global enter-
tainment. (Many would say it is a plus.) Yet these individuals are also being lim-
ited in their access to education, health care, and unfiltered news. At the most
fundamental level, there is also a question that goes beyond how to access global
networks and whether it will be affordable. This is whether one wishes to have ac-
cess to and intercourse with Western technological society at all. Is such access
good or bad? Right or wrong? Beneficial or destructive?