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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."
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?
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WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
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# 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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No one expects the Spammish Repetition!
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