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Iridium Corperation's flarewell to Iridium Flares: https://www.iridium.com/flarew...

But these new Iridium satellites are made so they don't have that very focused reflection that makes a brief light of about 5-10 seconds that is as an airplane light.
https://www.iridium.com/flarew...

Iridium and all other civilian satellite systems (to my knowledge - and clearly I don't know jack about the military and/or espionage satellites) do not cover all the oceans Most don't cover Antartica either.

Do you have a reference for that? Since Iridium satellites are in polar orbits they cross the entire Earth, and the wikipedia page at least claims global coverage including the poles.

And a page at the Iridium site claims:

Iridium is the only satellite communications provider capable of offering critical air-to-ground flight safety voice and data service to commercial aircraft around the globe.

https://www.iridium.com/soluti...

You are exactly right (about shedding debt), but I don't think that federal contracts hurt either:

U.S. Department of Defense Awards Iridium $400 Million, Five-Year Contract for Iridium® Airtime Services

What you say is significant, but I'd not be worried too much in this orbit. It's so low that atmospheric drag will get the thing down within one year (remember the space station needs tons of ergols yearly just to maintain it where it is, in the same surroundings).
What worries me more is the disappointment of you all people when you'll realize within 1 litre or two you'll just not be able to fit actual pointing (so no images) and this orbit will leave your beast in ground sight just a couple of minutes per day (so no contact nor relay at will).
One thing that may be efficient is a large collection of radio relay, commonly shared. But then you'll quickly find it's too costly to deploy.

To end in a more positive note: besides Cubesats you have a slightly costlier but *much* more efficient alternative: Iridium passenger payloads.
There, you have much more space allowed, a power plug and an optical-compatible pointing provided by the host, along with optional high-throughput links *all the time* along the whole orbit, so indeed this starts providing an actual experiment potential...
http://investor.iridium.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=547289
http://www.orbital.com/HostedPayloads/

You could call it Iridium. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellation http://iridium.com/

Satellite ISPs may be expansive, but they are the only solution in extreme cases such as this one.

Full connectivity is cheap compared with the rest of the cost of the trip and of the expected-value cost of getting stuck:

http://www.iridium.com/

Anything with a one-button rescue beacon service informs the purchaser that rescue isn't free. But for a few bucks a year you can buy what is essentially insurance that will cover most incidents:

http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=110

There are solutions to the cell-phone problem.

The GPS problem is the GPS mapmakers' fault. And don't get /. started on GPS route-selection algorithms.

The choices on an ocean aren't so different to what you get on land. There are fewer options generally and since scarcity drives price you can expect prices to go up.

Your options in rough speed order are:

- SSB
- Satellite Phone such as Iridium / Inmarsat Fleetbroadband
- VSat system

( overview of the sat phones: Satellite Phone Equipment Overview )

Then of course when you are near shore (10s meters to 10s miles) you have the usual culprits:
- Wifi
- GSM cell phones

All have their pros and conns:
- SSB is dismally slow and requires a bunch of experience to learn to use. Hard on ships batteries also. However, very long distance cruisers with plenty of time and patience seem to enjoy it. Sailmail is the market leader, but also you have Airmail for hams and smaller providers

- Iridium is nearly as slow as SSB, but a lot more "instant" and much more like a slow speed dialup internet connection. Reasonably pricey (Iridium Prepay Prices) It's *required* that you use some kind of email acceleration such as ExpressMail or GMN/Ocens or whatever

- BGAN/Fleetbroadband is near low end broadband speeds, but costs something similar to roaming cell phone prices and so its very cost effective for basic browsing, but not really priced for cruising slashdot daily. However, its about the best you can get for a price in single digits of thousands of dollars

- VSAT is your big geo stationary satellites that are rented out for sat TV, etc. Providers lease some space and give you a (very) big dish. The dishes need to be pointed extremely accurately, are quite large (60cm to 2m) and for marine use you are talking tens of thousands of dollars for equipment. However, fixed price, large volume contracts can be had for single digit thousands of dollars per month... So if you really are a business and need always on bandwidth then this is your option (think cruiseliner, some merchant vessels, super-yachts). The issue is that the market is fragmented and you need a provider who has rented space on multiple satellites to get anything like reasonable coverage - usually a Fleetbroadband is still needed to complete your coverage...

I already answered this question in a previous thread, so I will repost it here:

Yeah, funny how it gets a lot easier to run the business when Motorola assumes the 5 billion of debt and sells it to you for $25 million. The success of Iridium Satellite LLC is subsidized by the ashes of the original company.

Proper management made the difference after the sale removed the debt, but even if the company had been properly managed from the beginning, it still would have folded. Even 300k subscribers is not going to pay off that 5 billion monster, not when they're only netting about 14 million a year (when they turn a profit, which they did not for 2010).

I wish them well milking what they can from their cheap windfall. But I laugh at the thought that they might build another multi-billion dollar constellation based off such a pitiful business plan. Yes, their subscribers are GROWING, but only because they can offer such insanely cheap rates without having to pay-off the painful debt.

As soon as they invest in their own new constellation, they will either have to conjure millions of new customers out of thin air, or they will have to raise prices (this will send customers running, so I'm going to go with option one). But since the DoD contracts are already pretty saturated (seriously, does the military need a contract for more than 20k users?), the customer growth would have to come from the commercial or consumer sector. Either way, they are doomed in this approach, and once again, investors are going to be forced to eat the losses and once-again subsidize a "successful" network.

You're full of shit. If that were true the DoD wouldn't have to sign multi-million dollar contracts with Iridium for upkeep and airtime. See http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=2769, http://www.spacedaily.com/news/iridium-03a.html, http://investor.iridium.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=412313, http://www.defense.gov/contracts/contract.aspx?contractid=3235, etc.

Yep. All the money is now focused on things to serve the Earth (like a TV relays, spy pictures, or weather data) or serving wealthy earthlings who want to go into something almost zero gravity for a short stay. There's nobody interested in paying for Moon or Mars projects anymore it seems.

One thing that can be said about things like telecommunications satellites (including TV broadcasting sats but much more), remote sensing ("weather sats"... but also monitoring remote weather stations on the Earth too), and reconnaissance sats (including the classic "spy sats" by various military agencies.... but also things like Google Earth) is that they are proven applications of space technology where clearly a commercial entity can make some money and convince investors to dump in billions of dollars for infrastructure necessary to get it going. A good example of this is with the Iridium Satellite Constellation. BTW, Iridium is going to be expanding in the next couple of years with a new generation of their technology... with increased bandwidth and capabilities.

I'll also note that with these applications, while the "wealthy" do get served with this technology, it also helps those who are at the bottom of the heap in the social order of things too. This very technology has saved more lives due to advanced warnings for things like tsunamis, hurricanes and cyclones, and other severe weather problems than almost any other human activity other than urban sewage distribution and treatment systems. Very ordinary and indeed poor individuals also have access to the telecommunications systems, and navigation systems like GPS and Magellan have helped to make the transportation of goods around the world much, much cheaper due to increasing efficiency of navigation and shipping transportation.

The real trick is trying to figure out how to make money doing something else in space. Where there is going to be something new happening is with space tourism (yes.... those who have money "throwing it away" for a few moments of micro-gravity) and with space-based manufacturing. There certainly are processes and products that can only be made in space, and until very recently there was no basic infrastructure in place to even permit this kind of activity to take place. It really hasn't happened yet except on some very experimental processes that generated more hype than actual products. You will very soon be using products that have been manufactured in space and not simply just made for space manufacturing companies.

As for going to the Moon or Mars, the problem is that there is no infrastructure in place to be able to get to those places in the first place. Apollo was not about establishing infrastructure... other than building up Kennedy Space Center. Anything related to the Apollo program has long ago been gutted and sent to museums, and really didn't involve setting up a general system of allowing anybody other than government bureaucrats and employees to get there.

Getting to a Western USA model, when trying to exploit frontier areas there is a need to establish various bases of operation that can be used for both military and civilian uses. There is this thing call "logistics" that is necessary to really get somewhere and spend some significant periods of time away from your home. It doesn't matter if the location is in Antarctica, the bottom of an ocean, or on Mars. If you don't have that infrastructure in place to support that exploration, you can't have a sustained presence there. We don't have that infrastructure in place, and it is a fallacy that Constellation was ever going to get that infrastructure put into place there either.

We don't have an equivalent of McMurdo on the Moon, and until that happens you can kiss any chance for people doing projects on the Moon goodbye. Once something like that is built on the Moon, opportunities will expand and there will be

Iridium Satellite LLC is actually profitable, unlike the original Iridium LLC which went bankrupt promptly after launching the system and sold it to Iridium Satellite for pennies on the dollar.

Yeah, funny how it gets a lot easier to run the business when Motorola assumes the 5 billion of debt and sells it to you for $25 million. The success of Iridium Satellite LLC is subsidized by the ashes of the original company.

Proper management made the difference after the sale removed the debt, but even if the company had been properly managed from the beginning, it still would have folded. Even 300k subscribers is not going to pay off that 5 billion monster, not when they're only netting about 14 million a year (when they turn a profit, which they did not for 2010).

I wish them well milking what they can from their cheap windfall. But I laugh at the thought that they might build another multi-billion dollar constellation based off such a pitiful business plan. Yes, their subscribers are GROWING, but only because they can offer such insanely cheap rates without having to pay-off the painful debt.

As soon as they invest in their own new constellation, they will either have to conjure millions of new customers out of thin air, or they will have to raise prices (this will send customers running, so I'm going to go with option one). But since the DoD contracts are already pretty saturated (seriously, does the military need a contract for more than 20k users?), the customer growth would have to come from the commercial or consumer sector. Either way, they are doomed in this approach, and once again, investors are going to sat the losses and subsidize a successful network.

The answer: For commercial, government and scientific organizations, Iridium NEXT will also offer new business and earth observation opportunities through hosted secondary payloads on the 66 Iridium NEXT satellite network.

How hard would it be to to have very low bandwidth (text only) low frequency but high range radios in cell phones that would allow them to message each other directly over several miles bypassing the cell infustructure? Now that would be incredibly useful but it will never see the light of day for obvious reasons.

Well low frequency probably wouldn't work so great unless you had a very long antenna, but the rest of it seems like a good idea. I have always wondered why there is no dual mode PMR-446 (EU equivalent of FRS) GSM phone around. Eventually such phones would support limited data transfer for location polling and presence info (like a long-range bluetooth scan) but unfortunately even the new digital PMR standard doesn't support this.

Maybe someday we can do away with money grabbing mobile phone networks altogether and use the mesh network for local calls with gigabit WiMax provided by home users for backhaul and keep Iridium around for very remote areas and as an extra backup

You didn't specify if money was an issue. If not, what about a satellite phone?

http://www.iridium.com/products/product.php?linx=0350

Not fast, but works anywhere. The Globalstar network would also have data modems, but their coverage isn't as extensive as Iridium (lacks in southern areas and some ocean areas.

You do *not* want to lug a MacBook about. I don't even lug it about when going to a customer unless I've got a presentation. Even the idea of lugging it about on Korsikas GR20 or somewhere in the tundra of Kamtshatka is utterly silly.

Here's my list for '80% of landsurface' backpacking:
                Leatherman or equivalent
        Tent Repair Kit
        Tent (VauDe or, if you've got the cash, Hilleberg)
        Shampoo
        Waterfilter (katadyn or the sorts)
        Drinking Water Desinfectant (Micropur or the sorts)
        Drinking Water Fold Container
        3-4 underpants (2 synthetic, fast drying, 2 cotton/silk)
        3 pair of kneesocks (2 synthetic, one cotton)
        3 T-Shirts
        Toothcare Kit
        Fleece Pullover
        Outdoor Pants, the kind you can wash and wear. At the same time if the need be. (Tactel, Fleece, whatever tech cloth there is)
        Outdoor Jacket
        Headlamp (modern rugged LED)
        spare batteries
        Sleepingbag
        Biwakbag
        Kompass
        a good knife, if survival - no crap. Survival Knives tend to be crap. Look out.
        Isul-Matt
        Flask
        Moutaineers Cup
        Staticrope
        Materialkarabiner/Snaplink
        Plaster
        Tschamba-Fii (universal natural sun protection and post-sunburn treatment)
        A good book
        Map
        Backbelt / Materialrope/thin Staticrope + knowledge of knots
        Medium Backpack to carry it all. Not to big, you'll only pack to much
general medicine
snakebite kit
heat blanket
storm matches
lighter
cooker (the best is a methalated spirits cooker, meth-spirit is uncommon in the US - except for costal areas where the powerboots ride on it, but this fuel is available as cooking fuel everywhere else on the planet, you can run it on high percentage liquor if the need arises)

If you absolutely need to take tech then add:
A mechanical photocamera. With FILM! (as in 35mm). You do not want your techie gadget failing at -10 degrees and the most beautyfull view of your life at K2 or on to the Goby desert. Take enough films with you. Don't take a cam that needs electronics to work! By an old cheap Minolta 70 or something. They've survived stuff any modern cam wouldn't, no matter how expensive.

If you think you need a phone (which I wouldn't know why) then take an Iridium. All else is pointless. Don't forget a solar charger.

As a gadget fitting the phone would be a good universal PDA with an optional electronic cam built in. Get a pouch that can keep it warm when in the mountains or someplace cold. See that the solar charger fits both Iridium Phone and PDA (I recommend a Zaurus) and that you got a RS232 link to connect to the Iridium.

Happy posting from the chinese wall.
One word of Warning: If I catch you somewhere in the boondocks of patagonias nature and suddenly your phone rings, I'll kill you. Promise.

The list above isn't complete and needs tweaking. Do not take electronics with you unless you really know what you are doing. You won't need them anyway.

After all the Hindenburg and her brother zeppelins were meant to ferry not only passengers but mail. Call this the next generation of airship communications, although using balloons. I had even thought of this a few years back; mount cell transponder equipment on blimps and have them hover over populated areas to act as relays for mobile phones and wireless Internet.

But if you're going to go to the degree of high altitude balloons, why stop there? Satellites would be the ultimate answer. Ask Arthur C. Clarke. A globe-girdling satellite network along the lines of GPS but carrying voice and data. I know, satellite phones are big and clunky, but so were cell phones at one time. It's possible to get a satellite phone right now, though I doubt they are going to be as cheap as cell phones for a while.

3. Use a satellite phone?

http://www.iridium.com/

Hello, your statement is incorrect. Iridium's satellite constellation consists of 66 active satellites, and twelve additional spares providing COMPLETE global coverage. There are currently only two countries that we are restricted from sending our signal into for licensing reasons: North Korea and north (civil war territories) Sri Lanka. Note: north Sri Lanka has been temporarily unblocked for tsunami victims and aid workers in that region. For additional information please view - http://www.iridium.com/corp/iri_corp-understand.as p

Calling Iridium profitable is a very interesting use of the word profitable.

It's the same definition of profitability used elsewhere: to first order, the company's revenues exceed their expenses. (Since the company is not public, it is not required to publicly report the magnitude of those profits, so we have to take the company at its word about its status.) It should be noted that the company in question here is Iridium Satellite LLC, which is not the same as Iridium LLC, the company that went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in August 1999 after going billions of dollars into debt deploying the system. Iridium Satellite LLC was formed by a group of investors who spent on the order of $25-50 million to purchase the assets of Iridium LLC--including the satellite constellation--and operate them as a new company. It's a bit of a technicality, but it's the nature of capitalism that new companies are often formed out of the ashes of failed ones.

...the likelyhood that a direct replacement system will be launched is extreemly close to zero.

Such skepticism is certainly not unwarranted. However, the probability that Iridium will be able to deploy replacement satellites next decade as the existing satellites fail will depend on a number of factors, including but not limited to: market viability, entrance of new competitors (satellite or terrestrial) into those markets, company cash flow and profitability, the ability to obtain outside financing (investments, loans, etc.), satellite manufacturing costs, satellite launch costs, health of the existing constellation, and deployment schedule requirements. To conclude that that the odds of Iridium deploying a replacement system are "extremely close to zero" implies that you have evaluated these and other factors. Care to share the details of your assessment?

Let me get this straight:
1) You are the only sysop.
2) You've got 7 servers that must be up 24/7.
3) And you haven't even a single backupped spare with a watchdog to switch over when things go haywire?

Sorry, pal, but you're either bullshitting us or you gotta get some basics of your outfit sorted out before thinking of a satellite pager or other exotic stuff - that is not your current problem.

Having dealt with that, I recommend http://www.iridium.com/ for all your satellite communication needs. They are the satellite phone people. And they have a satellite SMS aswell.

may now have sms functionality

http://www.gmpcs-us.com/products/globalstar/Gst_sm s.htm
http://www.satphonestore.com/sms.htm
http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2003/0 8/001300.htm

Definately check out http://www.iridium.com/ and ask how recieving an SMS works - same as normal?

Are they replacing satellites that have reached EOL ?

Iridium currently has about a dozen spare satellites in orbit, in addition to the 66 operational spacecraft. While the earliest spacecraft have reached their originally-estimated EOL, the satellite constellation remains quite healthy, and company officials have indicated (based on independent studies) that the existing constellation should remain fully functional until around 2014. This gives the company plenty of time to plan launching replacement satellites, not to mention arranging financing (made easier by the fact that the company is now profitable and is free of the billions of debt the original Iridium rang up during the 1990s.)

If you're curious, Globalstar, Iridium's main satellite telephony rival, is in a similar situation: its constellation is in good shape, although with more on-orbit failures than Iridium. Globalstar has eight spare spacecraft on the ground they will likely launch in the next few years to supplement their existing constellation and keep it operating into the next decade.

For retailers: http://www.iridium.com/sale/iri_sale-sp.asp

Iridium + Text messaging (http://messaging.iridium.com/) is the way to go. That way you can not only receive it anywhere, but you can take action.

The one thing I did notice with the Iridium phones is that while they work EVERYWHERE on the globe (including in the middle of the Pacific on a cruise ship, great reception despite the latency), they don't perform as well as most modern phones in steel buildings (again, cruise ship). On the deck they were great. In the large open air suites they were great. In the casino and restaurants, not so great.

Above and beyond that, find a great managed hosting solution and make a deal with them to respond to alerts during periods of absence. I know my hosting company does this with our application servers from time to time.

Hope that helps.

How about an Iridium Pager?

Call them directly on +1.866.947.4348 or email sales@iridium.com

I do not work for Iridum.

The reason you only got "a couple listings" is because Iridium is pretty much the only game in town, and there's pretty much only one pager. There weren't exactly a lot of devices made for this market. It's no small feat to operate a global voice/data satellite network. There are only a "couple" of other providers (geared more toward government, military, and enterprise, and without "pager" offerings): InMarSat and GlobalStar, for example.

The Motorola 9501 for Iridium is, as I said, essentially the only satellite pager:

http://www.iridium.com/product/iri_product-detail. asp?productid=445

http://shop.infosat.com/pagers/

http://www.infosat.com/services/iridium/motorola_9 501_pager.htm

http://www.satwest.com/satellite_pagers_mi9501.htm l

More...

Of course, you may be interested in a satellite handset, not strictly a "pager", than can also get email and numeric messages. Keep in mind, though, that all of these satellite devices are subject to normal satellite requirements, e.g., line of sight to the sky. Yes, sometimes they'll "kind of" work in vehicles, wooded areas, etc., and you will get confirmed delivery of messages once you're again in range, but these things aren't exactly set up to work in houses and buildings. You may have no choice but to have a conventional cell phone/pager AND a satellite device for when you're remote, and have your automated systems and/or people try both devices.

For others in a similar boat, but not quite as remote as the submitter, you may also consider a conventional 2-way or 1.5-way nationwide pager, which provides delivery confirmation and re-attempts if you're temporarily out of range. But if you know you're going to be out of range for a while, you pretty much restricted to something like one of the satellite solutions. Consider a mobile phone. Most providers' digital networks offer email service, numeric "paging", and even true TAP/IXO paging. Just look into a provider that covers your area(s).

A bit of history on Iridium: Iridium was the satellite phone service launched by Motorola on Sept 23, 1998, when the last satellite of its global constellation was in place. Handset prices (over $3000) and airtime fees (several dollars per minute), as well as attempting to market to ordinary folks doomed the service from the beginning. Motorola decided to end the Iridium service on March 17, 2000, at 11:59pm. After billions were spent on the 66 satellites, and the $1 million per month that it cost Motorola for Boeing operate the satellites, Motorola initiated plans to deorbit and destroy the constellation. Various investor groups attempted to save Iridium, and the Defense Department even provided $72 million to keep the satellites operational (in the face of concerns of debris from the deorbited satellites actually hitting someone on earth, which NASA pinned at 1 in 250). In any event, Iridium Satellite LLC successfully purchased the assets of the $7 billion Motorola Iridium program in November 2000 for a mere $25 million:

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0011/16iridium/
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0103/29iridium/

The new Iridium, launched in March 2001, attempts to fix the shortcomings of the original by expanding beyond satellite voice telephone service, into data, video, realtime monitoring, and special applications in markets such as mining, oil/gas, m

The reason you only got "a couple listings" is because Iridium is pretty much the only game in town, and there's pretty much only one pager. There weren't exactly a lot of devices made for this market. It's no small feat to operate a global voice/data satellite network. There are only a "couple" of other providers (geared more toward government, military, and enterprise, and without "pager" offerings): InMarSat and GlobalStar, for example.

The Motorola 9501 for Iridium is, as I said, essentially the only satellite pager:

http://www.iridium.com/product/iri_product-detail. asp?productid=445

http://shop.infosat.com/pagers/

http://www.infosat.com/services/iridium/motorola_9 501_pager.htm

http://www.satwest.com/satellite_pagers_mi9501.htm l

More...

Of course, you may be interested in a satellite handset, not strictly a "pager", than can also get email and numeric messages. Keep in mind, though, that all of these satellite devices are subject to normal satellite requirements, e.g., line of sight to the sky. Yes, sometimes they'll "kind of" work in vehicles, wooded areas, etc., and you will get confirmed delivery of messages once you're again in range, but these things aren't exactly set up to work in houses and buildings. You may have no choice but to have a conventional cell phone/pager AND a satellite device for when you're remote, and have your automated systems and/or people try both devices.

For others in a similar boat, but not quite as remote as the submitter, you may also consider a conventional 2-way or 1.5-way nationwide pager, which provides delivery confirmation and re-attempts if you're temporarily out of range. But if you know you're going to be out of range for a while, you pretty much restricted to something like one of the satellite solutions. Consider a mobile phone. Most providers' digital networks offer email service, numeric "paging", and even true TAP/IXO paging. Just look into a provider that covers your area(s).

A bit of history on Iridium: Iridium was the satellite phone service launched by Motorola on Sept 23, 1998, when the last satellite of its global constellation was in place. Handset prices (over $3000) and airtime fees (several dollars per minute), as well as attempting to market to ordinary folks doomed the service from the beginning. Motorola decided to end the Iridium service on March 17, 2000, at 11:59pm. After billions were spent on the 66 satellites, and the $1 million per month that it cost Motorola for Boeing operate the satellites, Motorola initiated plans to deorbit and destroy the constellation. Various investor groups attempted to save Iridium, and the Defense Department even provided $72 million to keep the satellites operational (in the face of concerns of debris from the deorbited satellites actually hitting someone on earth, which NASA pinned at 1 in 250). In any event, Iridium Satellite LLC successfully purchased the assets of the $7 billion Motorola Iridium program in November 2000 for a mere $25 million:

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0011/16iridium/
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0103/29iridium/

The new Iridium, launched in March 2001, attempts to fix the shortcomings of the original by expanding beyond satellite voice telephone service, into data, video, realtime monitoring, and special applications in markets such as mining, oil/gas, m

OK, so it took me all of three minutes to find what you are looking for.
First, I googled Satellite Pager and found out that Motorola used to make a pager called the 9501 for well known satellite phone company Iridium. Next, I checked a few of the first links. I found that the Motorola 9501 has been discontinued but originally retailed for $149.95. I also found that the service had a $100 activation fee and was $69 a month, and Iridium still offers it. Ahah! Theres something! So then I clicked on the seventh link down and found out that a company called World COmmunications Center sells refurbished ones for $195. You can buy the pager from them and activate it with Iridium's service. There's a link that says How to Buy on the WCC page that lists their phone numbers, including one in Portland, OR. Close enough for Seattle for ya?
Now I could probably find more, but I have to be back at work in 20 minutes and don't really feel like more googling. So enjoy, I hope this works for you.
Ask Slashdot: For When You're Just Too LazyTM
And oh yeah...FP!

Iridium who does satellite phones also does global pagers. The pagers are not too expensive about 150.00 dollars US, but the service is about 127 dollars a month for unlimited pages or you can get the basic plan that i think is around 56 dollars it gives you about 150 pages per month. If your stuff doesn't go down that much i'd get the basic plan. A place that I know that sells it is InfoSat YOur other option is have your cell phone text messaged. I usually never not have service. If I do it's not for very long, and when i get back into a populated area or get reception i get my messages right away. The point is, what if you get a page but you can't call anyone because you have no reception. That would fustrate me more.

Iridium who does satellite phones also does global pagers. The pagers are not too expensive about 150.00 dollars US, but the service is about 127 dollars a month for unlimited pages or you can get the basic plan that i think is around 56 dollars it gives you about 150 pages per month. If your stuff doesn't go down that much i'd get the basic plan. A place that I know that sells it is InfoSat YOur other option is have your cell phone text messaged. I usually never not have service. If I do it's not for very long, and when i get back into a populated area or get reception i get my messages right away. The point is, what if you get a page but you can't call anyone because you have no reception. That would fustrate me more.

Iridium satellite data services:
Dial-up-data: 2.4 kbps
Direct Internet Data: 10 kbps (when the compression is working)

The company behind the technology is kind of lame, it's insanely expensive and it would be pretty slow however I doubt the government could do much to stop an Iridium phone with the data kit.

The company behind the technology is kind of lame, it's insanely expensive and it would be pretty slow however I doubt the government could do much to stop an Iridium phone with the data kit.

My question was why do they need 100 satellites?
They should be able to accomplish what they want with 30 or 40. Even Iridium only needs 66 satellites, and that's mostly because they're in LEO. If China is launching 100 single-purpose satellites, that seems like a waste of launchers & orbits, when they could combine functionality and save a lot of money.

Another question - who allocates orbital space for them? I wouldn't want their satellites to be colliding with mine.
:-)

Chip H.

From Infosphere to the First Inforb

The infosphere wants to be in orbit, and soon, it will be.

In space there is no need to lay optical fiber nor to obtain right-of-way from an international committee, you simply point a laser and shoot at the destination of your message.

The vast majority of digital communication traffic is from server to server. The big problem is "the last mile" of communications, and that is because of the difficulty of laying cable around urban areas.

You can go wireless from home or office to a local Ka-band ground station that uplinks direct to an on-orbit infosphere consisting of servers and routers.

This will unfold approximately as follows:

1) Wireless will replace cable in urban areas, thus dispensing with "the last mile" problem and waking people up to the fact that you pay heavy hidden taxes for trying to lay cable that crosses terrestrial bureaucracies.

2) Existing satellite Internet systems (note here that Iridium was _not_ an Internet system) will expand, possibly including the deployment of Teledesic.

3) The success of these wireless systems in previously underdeveloped areas such as China will further establish the viability of this general approach.

4) Launch prices lower as western protectionism over the launch industry is finally removed. (Interesting, isn't it, that even as the West was trying to figure out how to get hard currency businesses to employ Russian military personnel in commercial capacities, the West was bullying Russia into raising its launch prices so that Western government-subsidized launch firms could compete? Just goes to show you the Soviet public sector was more efficient than the West's public sector which isn't surprising when you think of it in those terms.)

5) With lowered launch prices, satellite prices will, at first drop gradually, and then plummet. Satellite prices will plummet when launch prices are low enough that satellites can create internal "office environments". This will not be for people -- it will be for the "office environment" mass produced electronics that go into servers and routers. Note: This will occur much later for geosynchronous satellites which must carry far more massive shielding from Van Allen belt radiation.

6) As the infosphere is going through the most rapid movement from the biosphere to Earth orbit, the most economic means of fixing a satellite will be to replace it. The increasing, industrial capacity, launch volume will drive launch prices to levels comparable with other transporation industries.

7) With launch prices lowered to industrially rational levels, human presence will become permanent on the various orbital planes in order to service the satellites on those orbital planes.

Unlike this project, iridium wasn't a satellite. It was a constellation of satellites - 66 satellites + 14 spares!. Just think of the difference in costs. Service isn't $60USD, it's $60CAN. You could hardly say "hello" to your Mother for that much at Iridium's initial asking price. As for rural folk not "really needing" Internet, well none of us does, but we pay through the nose anyways. I live in a city of 500,000 people where DSL is not available in my neighborhood, and cable costs almost the same as this satellite service.

Pretty slow at 2.4 to 10Kbps, and probably pricey. However - it is proven for the uses you mention.

Unless by killed you mean alive and well, I think you're a bit mistaken. In fact, here is an article published today about someone reselling the service. Perhaps you are confused by the fact that the originial Iridium went bankrupt. That doesn't mean that their 66 satellites stopped working, though. They were sold to a new group of investors.

The problem with Iridium in this situation is that, AFAIK, rates are on the order of $1/minute. That is probably out of the reach of your average yak farmer. While Wi-Fi has higher initial costs, it is basically free to operate once you have all the equipment.

Just for the record this did happen . The satellites are still up there, but the initial investors lost their money. The new Iridium is alive and well.

Iridium, one of Motorola's biggest all-time money losers. I think the DoD still has a contract with them though, even though their original concept (that of public market penetration) crashed and burned quite hard. The nifty air-droppable and instantly deployable solar satellite phonebooths they proposed for low-lying Africa and other places without appropriate infrastructure likewise didn't come into being, as far as I know.

Hmmmm.. This sounds interesting. So you want a communications network that doesn't actually require an infrastructure? If there's any additional equipment required, you'll always have to have someone to pay for it. Your phone bill goes to your telco's costs, like paying for the wires, hardware, physical locations, staff, etc, etc, etc...

I like the idea of the wireless peer networking idea.. If you're in range of other devices, you can relay through them. There was a PDA out a year or two ago targeted towards school kids that could do that. But it was limited to about 100' range. I suppose it could be done with an ad-hoc network, but there are definate problems with it.. Like, what happens if you have too many people in the same place? What if you're the only link to the next network?

I'd definately not want to be the only point between two large groups.

But, it's not on "the" internet, unless there's a peering.. Peerings don't come free. Without a peering, you don't see the Internet.

Wireless, as it is, won't cut it. There are a few places in the world that would be obsticles to this, such as oceans (a subtle percentage of the earth's surface), and deserts.. I drove across I-10 not too long ago, and saw a whole lot of dirt and rocks, but had no signal on my phone, and no AM or FM reception. I know what I drove across (4 lanes of pavement 2000+ miles long) is a very small sample of what's out there. A boost in power could work, but it would also cause *LOTS* of interference. Imagine 10 people broadcasting at high power in the middle of the desert. They'd have no problems reaching each other.. Now imagine the same broadcast power in a "hyperdense" area. 83,000 people per square mile in New York.. That would be messy. Good thing cell phones are low power, and they have a lot of towers.

To get access *anywhere*, you'd need a more distributed method.. Iridium has a beautiful network of satellites, with both data and voice service, but you're going to have to pay for using it.. Someone paid a few dollars to get those satellites up there.

Until people are willing to do things for free, and receive things for free, you won't see free connectivity.. Now you're looking at a Star Trek Utopia that will never happen.

I for one, am willing to give my time, but it's going to take a lot more than the two of us, and someone's going to have to figure out where the equipment comes from to do something like this. You can just go war-driving, and find poorly configured access points, and do VoIP on those. :) You're limited to being within range of their AP's though.

1. You need to survey it, build towers etc. - its a BIG country !
2. The insfrastructure is buggered even before the war - power, landline system etc.
3. Who the hells going to be able to buy them ? A lot of the people are dirt poor. Sort out the sanitation, fresh water, power etc. first, which is in disarray (see 2)

Hrm. Iridium, eh? So that's where all those Motorola satellites landed.

When I travel, about the only tech I take is my GPS receiver chock full 'o waypoints. It runs for a few days on two NiMH AA batteries. I also take some additional AAs and keep in a solar charger. I stick that thing in the sun every chance I get (e.g. window sill, dashboard of a rental car, strapped to the top of my backpack or head).

Laptops are tougher. Get a handful of power adapters and recharge every chance you get (e.g. restaurants, exterior outlets on houses, DC-AC inverter in cars, bare wires in bases of lamp posts, etc). Also take a long some extra laptop batteries.

And don't forget your Iridium phone so you can check your email any where,any time.

Iridium is back up and running, covers the entire planet (the satellites are in low polar orbits) and the U.S. Government has a bulk buy deal on Iridium satellite minutes. (DoD now owns part of the system, having bought in after the bankruptcy.)

AAAAARGHHHH!!! I've had enough of you Americans moaning about lack of service. Just use Iridium and shut up. Use anywhere worldwide, excellent reception, although I can't remember if they burnt up a couple of satellites when the parent company (or whatever) went bust.

The concept of putting transmitters in the sky isn't new. Iridium has been doing worldwide telephone coverage by using satellites for years. The whole weather balloon receiver thing, while it's an interesting concept, sounds like it would be error prone (the coverage would be inconsistant due to weather balloons going up or down) and costly (To quote the article: "The company estimates its annual operating expenses at $35 million per year. About half of that would go toward equipment: $300 worth for each of the 50,000 or so balloons that would be launched over the course of a year.").