Currently, ahumanright.org is designing a pilot program for a developing country to roll out 10,000 end-user devices and ground stations to test the feasibility of such an idea using pre-existing satellite infrastructure. On their board, the organization has had people like the late Senator Gaylord Nelson, principal founder of Earth Day International; Lon Levin, founder of XM Satellite Radio; and Simon P. Warden, Director of the NASA Ames Research Center. So far, ahumanright.org has secured funding from Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) and are looking for volunteers.
[ https://www.stanford.edu/group/sdg/cgi-bin/dev/liber/?q=node... ]
Palomar5’s main sponsor has been Deutsche Telekom AG, one of the world’s leading telecommunication companies.
[ http://www.gaffta.org/tag/palomar5/ ]
EDIT: As if to prove my point:
As the CTO of Deutsche Telekom Thomas Curran advised us: “You’re evangelizing for access, expanding it. That can only help the industry.”
[ http://www.blog.ahumanright.org/2010/10/buy-that-satellite/ ]