The use of satellite telecommunications for educational and other public service purposes has been restricted by educators' lack of awareness of the potential that exists. While industry actively promotes its own interests, educators rarely even realize that international policies being made today will affect critically the options available for the use of technology tomorrow. One tool educators are using is the Joint Council on Educational Telecommunications (JCET), founded in 1950 to prevent television channels from becoming as inaccessible to educators as radio stations had become. Interacting in later years with such agencies as the Federal Communications Commission and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the JCET has had an impact on the use of satellites for public service broadcasting, but unless an advantageous telecommunications policy becomes a priority among educators generally, promising programs and agencies in the area will continue to be first to fall under the budget-cutter's axe. The author, a member of the JCET, concludes that educators can participate in forming communications policy or can leave the decisions to others, but must accept the consequences. (Author/PGD)