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Iridium Returns From The Dead. Again.
Tjp($)pjT writes "A Canadian company which bought Iridium for roughly a quarter of a cent on the dollar has scheduled the re-opening of the service. Rescued from a blazing death of dropping all 66 sats and their spares out of orbit to burn up on reentry, the 5 BILLION dollar system was purchased on the block for 25 million. The US Government contracted with the service for unlimited air time for 20,000 phones for two years with other options. More can be read here."
It really looks like there is no market for a telecomunications network like Iridium. No matter who purchases it, prices to the public will still be high. It has already been proven in Europe that ubiquitous mobile communications are possible without the need for expensive sattelite systems. The US government should spend their money on something more productive, like healthcare.
...Raymond Leopold, Iridium's Chief Technological Officer goes further. "If you believe in God." he says, "Iridium is God manifesting himself through us."
I'm not sure where this exerpt came from, so I have to leave it here unattributed.
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
I read the internet for the articles.
it crashes, then crashes again . . .
9600kbps. Don't waste your time.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Escuse me, 9600bps. I have trouble readjusting to a world where bps are actually a useful measure. That was like 1995 for me :)
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Now, if my calculations are correct Motorola basically just lost $4,975,000,000. Do I err in saying that they do not possess that amount of cash? Why does Motorola still exist? Why haven't they blown up? How do you lose the entire GDP of Ethiopa and still exist as an entity that can credibly function as a for-profit business? I'm serious, can someone explain this to me?
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
They're noisy little transmitters with lots of spill-over, spill-over that can affect the avionics. Many civilian aircraft already come with tested-and-approved Skyphone-type services, they're not gonna start allowing some bozo back in the cabin pull out his sat-phone and start broadcasting.
Whine how you want about the FAA being too conservative it's not gonna matter, it aint happening soon. As to the service-providers suggesting any such thing, nooo way they wanna get hit with any litigation if a plane goes off course / goes down.
This could be of use to folks in the aviation industry as it's not unusual to ship out on short notice for emergancies (no, not just crashes, typically repairs in odd places etc.) For those folks this is a big win. I've a buddy in Yellowknife tonight inpecting a an aircraft with problems I'm sure he'd love a phone number that HQ could reach him on wherever he is at the moment without him hoping there's a cell. service that he can get onto.
But onboard aircraft, not gonna happen, civilian or militairy.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
People can get back to worrying about Mir ;-)
After that maybe killer asteroids will get the attention they deserve.
To find out more, please visit
Stand On Guard
-josh
A professor uses the Iridium network to map
the flows of magnetic field around the earth.
It is particularly interesting this year because
it is a Solar Maximum with magnetic storms
emanating from the Sun now and then.
Each Iridium Satelite contains a magnetometer
for helping keep them oriented.
[Mir, Iridium Satellites] will [be saved, be trown out of orbit on $date].
Err, umm, hate to rain on your parade, but what about this quote from the article?
"We're very vertical-market oriented in areas such as the construction, marine, forestry and oil-and-gas industries, focusing on remote applications and also things like emergency services and aviation."
Yeah, in parts of the US, we do!
The problem is that almost all the comparisons you see talk about the Federal tax VS European Federal taxes. Our taxes are lower on that level, BUT MOST European countries have almost no state and local taxes
If you live in a "High Tax" state, like NY, by the time you get done with Federal and State Income taxes, you can hit the 50% mark, and often do! You see, to make up for the high cost of living in NY, they pay you more, so that the average income is higher. It leads to "Bracket Creep"
Then you have to add in Local taxes, and various excise taxes. For instance, why does Gas in NY cost 10 cents a gallon more than gas 100 yds aweay in NJ? State taxes. Want to know what you pay in property taxes around here? Got 8k a year?
Don't forget 8.25% Sales tax, your "Phone Tax", your "Heating Oil Tax", your WWII Emergency Tire Tax (Hidden in the price of tires), if you buy sporting goods, your Pittman Roberts tax, etc - There are a LOT of taxes hidden in the price of goods
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
I have a question relating to the 'saving' of these satellites. It also relates to the impending scuttling of Mir.
Why do space people even bother bringing old stations and satellites back to burn up in the atmosphere?
I understand it is very expensive to put stuff up into space, so would it not make sense to leave it up there? Could we not use the parts at some time in the future if they were left behind.
And in the case of the space fungi growing on Mir etc, is it not of interest to have man made stuff left up in space for us to study how it interacts with cosmic rays, prolonged exposure to space environment and whatever else happens up there?
Why can't we set this stuff adrift to float toward the moon or something?
I'm sure there's a reason for this. I just don't know what it is. Does anyone?
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astronomical amounts
best choice of words I've seen all week.
Those damn canadians stole our 5 billion dollar fireworks show that we have all been waiting for!
;)
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those things!
-Chris
Hmm.. world domination. Does this have anything to do with the rumor of Microsoft moving to Canada?
Mmmm.. Donuts
They need to take Iridium down, damnit, so that the radio scientists can hear what they're listening for.
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"The initial data transmission speed will be 2.4 kilobits per second, Ms. Washburn said, and in the following weeks it should increase to 10 Kbps." Wow! 10 Kbps! Sign me up!
. .
It's been noted the squillions lost by the original investors, and how maybe Mot should have poured in more. But thankfully, even after all that carnage, there's a chance a product will come out at a price the market can afford and which will sustain the company. After all, unlike Teledesic and all, Iridium is at least _up there_.
My guess is that the markets burned the original investors who had hoped for first - mover monopolies, and that in a way is sweet.
also sweet is a real chance for me not to be stuck with out terrestrial GSM monopolies (UK has four, One2One, Vodaphone, Cellnet, Orange) which stupid, or self serving governments don't realise a monopoly div by n is just one encumbant with best capital picking cherries and several followers too scared not to take the cosy fruits of symbiosis back to the shareholders. With only 4 choices, these companies just "[brand] value associate" themselves with different sets of customers and screw on any chance of working technology like GPRS or 3G. The smaller outfits can always claim to be competitive, because the big guys always price for pain.
I'm still arguing with Cellnet why they doubled my c. $1000/yr standing charge for flat roaming across Europe (Europe One Rate), without giving me the option to exit. (was signed for 12 mth rolling to get the rates). Anyone remember being compensated for suddenly expensive flights by British Airways when the Supreme Court ruled Freddie Laker got fsked by them? I digress.
Gimme Iridium, but gimme pocket sized 'phones.
You don't pay high taxes. That is a lie perpetrated by the super-rich owners of the media in order to get their tax rates lowered.
Of course if you want to talk about a waste of money, I'd like to direct you to 'son of Star Wars' - designed to neutralise a non-existent missile threat.
Only if the Russians decide to re-elect a man so hated that he is currently under 24 hour protection. Vladimir Putin is the current president.
Will they be purchasing Amiga next week or the week after?
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It is easy to control all that you see,
Iridium, like cheese, fine wine and MIR only gets better with age.
The anti-salmon
They could also start marketing to replace current cell phones for those people that are worried about safety. I can see the ads now: scene of a car crash on a deserted road, weeping kids trying to call for help on a traditional cell phone while mom lies unconscious at the wheel of the car, camera closeup on the "no signal" message. Sorry to be morbid, but they could sell a lot of these.
Is $1500 (especially if it's added to the cost of your Mercades Benz ) too much to spend on the security of your family? Of course you are only going to use it for emergency calls, right, so you don't need to worry about the $1.50 a minute cost.
Get one for your boat, your car, your plane... if you put them in a nice, cherry wood case they'll probably quickly become status symbols, just like the original "car phone".
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
If that maneuver is successful, they plan to launch all 66 satellites again from the surface, route one more phone call, then crash them into the asteroid for good.
In the case of Iridium, it's a fairly (under 5 years in orbit)new satellite system, that despite the owners having gone bankrupt (the buyout happened in late 2000), is very much operational and current technology... The Iridium satellite network had sold very few phones, due to a $3,000 price tag... However, they also allow for worldwide wireless net access as well as voice communications... Useful if you're stuck in the boonies, or doing scientific studies in areas where there aren't cel/telephone systems in place...
m l
Largely though, the lack of sales was due to rabid competition from existing local and national cellular phone technology... It still is a viable technology, just don't expect it to sell in any country that practically gives cel phones away...
As for the story itself, it's old (3 months hence) news, originally viewable at:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-4119384.ht
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
IIRC, the sat collection cost $8M/month to run. They have already set a two year gov contract for $72M which covers six months of operational costs. They seem to have set themselves up as a wholesaler otherwise; currently having twelve resellers. That makes a lot of sense to spread the operating cost onto them while taking in initially (probably) small contracts from them. This really does have the chance to work, especially if they get the renewed gov contract in two years... which is likely considering gov spending.
"I've seen plays that were more exciting than this.
Honest to god... Plays!" Homer Simpson
People are going into business with sound ideas, even if they are risky ventures.
The thing that stood out most about the article was the fact that the new owners aren't even *trying* to market to the cellular world. They're going after peeps who can't use cellular/pcs becuase of their location(s). Despite the fact that this is an incredibly risky venture, it shows that people are less and less high on the 'tech boom' and more and more savvy about what their trying to do.
That said, it's a pretty sad state of affairs for the U.S. that this took a Canadian to get it working. (Some of my best friends are Canadian...)
C'mon you fat, lazy Americans. You can do better than this!
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
There's also the problem with having floating space junk such as adrift sattelites slamming into spacecraft or functioning sattelites. Difference in orbits can create immense velocity differentials. If the spaceshuttle were to impact a 'lost' Iridium bird, that would be pretty much it for all aboard.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Nope. It can slow down so that it doesn't rotate, always showing the same face to the sun rather than earth. This would make it appear to roate once per day around earth.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
SVs at all altitudes are required to remain within control boxes a few km on a side.
The thing that decays orbits faster at LEO is that there is actually a little bit of atmosphere out there, constantly braking the orbit. But that's still pretty small.
What makes all the control really necessary is the difficulty of computing trajectories more than a couple of days out from feedback data that is only good to 3-6 significant figures. Today's corrective bump is next week's broken crosslink. And as long as you're going to have to do all that control, and make and break links semi-randomly, you might as well justify it by putting the birds right on the deck where you can get good signals and short propagation times.
Now if only they can find a real market.
--Blair
"Damn. I was gonna bid $26 million, but my browser hanged..."
There would be a market for satellite phones, and data connectivity, for trans-oceanic and trans-polar flights. When you consider how long it takes to go to Japan or Australia, lots of business types would probably be happy to spend $1.50/minute for voice or $5.00/megabyte for data so they can keep working. When you consider what their time can be worth, that's cheap. It's fewer planes to hook up, but you've got the market to yourself. Might be even more profitable.
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Yes with the amazing bandwidth of 2400 baud at only $1.50 a minute you too can be online (online connection subject to disconnection at random with an mean of about 7 minutes.) I've used Iridium data services, and it was the only time in modern times when I just catted my email to the terminal (in log mode) rather than try to run pine. Iridium data is good for tiny transmissions of metadata and perhaps small "pages" but it is connection oriented at the phone (not "always on" ) and quite a bit more picky than their voice service. On the other hand, it's one of the cheapest ways to get satellite airtime and has a much higher bandwidth than your average consumor bidirectional satellite connection (with WAY better latency).
Iridium may not look all that great next to cell phones in areas where you can acually get cell phone coverage (like all of Europe and about 1/2 to 1/20 of the US depending on how modern a service you want (the more modern the service the worse the coverage in general), but it really shines compared to other satellite services available to the general public. Maybe we were to0 hard on Iridium...
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
I read the internet for the articles.
Cellular anywhere? How does Internet Anywhere sound?
--
WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Satellite phones have their uses, especially for very remote areas. The article indicates that Iridium was originally going after regular cell phone users, and that's just plain wrong. The low startup cost to the new company will allow them to break even sooner, keep costs down, and make sure they're marketing to the right kinds of people - those who want cell phone service ANYWHERE.
In areas that lack the infrastructure needed to support mobile communications, a network like Iridium makes greate sense. Keep in mind that this is the state of affairs in the vast majority of the world; and natural disasters can easily disrupt communications even in a techologically wired area, effectively without notice.
I'm not surprised that the US government has signed on for a big contract. There are very few private citizens who have the absolute, essential need to have phone service under any circumstance. On the other hand, government agencies routinely send civilian employees into less-than-optimal environments - fighting forest fires, dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane, medical mercy missions - where being able to pick up a phone and just have it work, no matter what, suddenly makes managing things a whole lot simpler.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
This isn't Origami in my hand, it's my paper Iridium phone. See, the antenna folds out when I do this, then this, then this, with this, and that...
We Canadians are polite, quiet, and unassuming.
We're also slowly taking over the world.
We're living in your countries, permeating your societies, and now we're BUYING YOUR SATELLITES!
Think the Canadarm on the ISS will simply do what the astronauts want?
Bwahahahaha!
We control the horizontal, we control the vertical, and we control *space*! The Earth will soon be OURS!!!
Did anyone notice the figures for the 2-year government contract? $72,000,000 for 20,000 phones with unlimited usage.
$72,000,000/20,000 = $3,600 per phone.
There are 24 months in 2 years, so $3,600/24 = $150/mo.
Where can I get a deal like that? $150/mo. with unlimited service worldwide (or nearly so)? Sounds good to me.
Paper Iridium Phones anyone? Should I patent the concept? Or does this comment prove prior art? Anyone?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Guess when Iridium will splash?
sulli
RTFJ.
It's very difficult to put something into orbit and then have it stay in that exact same orbit for ever and ever.
Even the moon's orbit changes very slightly from day to day. Due to gravitational effects, the moon will slowly stop rotating in the distant future as well.
For items closer to the planet, their orbits are much less stable. Gyroscopes, jets, and small rockets are required to make orientation changes and orbit corrections from time to time to adjust for small orbit changes.
Low Earth Orbit sattellites such as the Iridium birds require much more control to keep their orbits from decaying than a higher-altitude sattellite.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Bummer... and I was looking forward to watching the Iridium meteor shower. Guess I'll have to settle for MIR...
Motorola et al. ate the US$5e9 cost of the satellite constellation, and sold it for a mere US$2.5e7. They didn't dump it in the ocean, they sold it to someone who thought they could make money with it. As long as the operating costs are low enough that you can get positive cash flow, there is no reason to dump the satellites; you can always recoup some money by selling to someone with another business plan.
This means that Iridium isn't going to go into the ocean until one of three things happens:
- The satellites break down or run out of propellant.
- The market for services which can be offered using the satellites won't support the operating costs.
- The market takes off, and the spectrum becomes so valuable that the satellites have to be dumped to make room for better ones.
Until then you can expect to see one operator or another trying to eke out some money from Iridium's shrinking cluster of birds.--
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I used to work for a tech company that evaluated these systems. Back in the day Irridium was thought to be a total joke - the idea was (apparently, correctly) that MEO (medium earth orbit) satellites were just too difficult and expensive to use for profitable telecom.
However, all the heat went off Irridium and its 60+ MEO satellites when Gates and McCaw backed Teledesic, which called for something like 200+ LEO satellites to deliver broadband Internet worldwide. Obivously, LEO satellites are even more complex and difficult to manage (handoffs, launches, etc.) that MEO.
I just look up Teledesic, though, and it is still going strong. Clearly still vaporware, but it is interesting that they have not given up in light of Irridium's continuing woes.
Rumor has it they will land the satelites to either spell the word "7-Up" or "Chairhead".
(Oh wait, I already did this joke!, doh!)
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
The market segment for this service is not the normal cell phone user as they point out. They fail to mention that the real market for this service is in avionics. If you are sitting up in a plane, well, to say the least, cell phones don't work. The signal hitting a ton of towers at once is not a good thing for the old cell phones. The government and airlines use these phones in planes. The government also uses them the way that the article says, for when a cell phone isn't going to work. Say for instance when you are going to be traveling all over the world. (Yeah, Yeah, let me take my US phone to Europe, oops, what do you mean it doesn't work there.)
I just found it surprising that they failed to mention the aviation industry, since that is who uses, sells, and produces a lot of the phones.
You're obviously not a Windows user.
I can't stand waiting any more...
The endless disappointment of Mir being
kept in orbit...
The on-the-edge-of-your-seat-anticipation
waiting for dozens of satellites to crash
and burn... only to be DENIED!
Hurry up and crash something already...
I'm not satisfied.
Is this the promised end? Or image of that horror? KING LEAR