Iridium Offers Data service - IRC From Anywhere!

quadra writes: "Iridium is now offering satellite data services. For the first time, dial-up and direct internet applications are available anywhere on the planet. Using a data kit attached to an Iridium phone you can either dial up a modem, or use direct internet connectivity. Speeds are rather modest (9600bps) but there's plenty of applications where that'd suffice." OK. I would happily pay $300 / month even for 9.6kbps, if it was unmetered -- I could ride my BikeE the world around with a headmounted display, a twiddler, and a solar-charged laptop in the cargo bin. But prices are hard to find on the Iridium website, which means I can't afford it.

Comments

No, the Iridium sats are in LEO

[localroger]

The Iridium sats are in Low Earth Orbit so that they can get sufficient signal strength for a handheld device to connect. This means that the arctic regions are covered, and also that the network needs a lot of satellites -- which it has. Ping time is probably not good compared to landlinks but is nowhere near the delay you'd expect from geosynchronous.