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Iridium May Have To Reinvent Itself Again
prgrmr writes "The Washington Post has this article on the latest wrinkle in the Iridium saga. There may be a conflict between new competition and existing contractual obligations for putting up the next generation of sattelites. This could become a milestone for making the service more ubiquitous, or the millstone that finally sinks it."
Hey y'all.
Not only will they have to reinvent themselves, but they will have to dodge falling satallites.
That way I can buy it extra cheap! The price should drop after each bankruptcy!
by Wesley Willis
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About 29000 people like Microsoft Is Great.
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The heartbeat of America - that's today's Chevrolet.
Cunning linguists
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The requested URL (articles/02/05/24/1840216.shtml?tid=126) was not found.
If you feel like it, mail the url, and where ya came from to pater@slashdot.org.
Your friend and mine, Alex Chiu, has found Iridium.. only 3 easy payments of $29.99
Get that rats nest off your head, you numbskull -- Wesley Willis
Mere hours ago, Islamic extremists blew up a California apartment complex in the worst terrorist attack on a residential neighborhood in American history, and you people have the gall to be discussing satellite phones???? My *god*, people, GET SOME PRIORITIES!
The bodies of the innocent people who died in this unprecedented tragedy could give a good god damn about your childish Lego models, your nerf toy guns, your whining about the lack of a "fun" workplace, your Everquest/Diablo/D&D fixation, your time-shifted Cowboy Bebop reruns, or any of the other ways you are "getting on with your life" (here's a hint: watching Cowboy Bebop in your jammies and eating a bowl of Shreddie's is *not* "getting on with your life"). The souls of the victims are watching in horror as you people squander your finite, precious time on this earth playing video games!
You people disgust me! In a way, you're almost as bad as the terrorists themselves. At least they had the conviction to risk their lives doing something they believed in.
I gave him the money like, two hours ago, and he still isn't back.
--
pants ahoy
"sattelites" should be spelled
satellites.
Enjoying some superb home grown United States of
Amerika pot!!!
Iridium Finds Itself in a Contractual Bind
Va. Firm Must Commit to Satellites, Even as Rivals Pursue New Technologies
For a soldier in Kosovo, or an oil rigger working in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, there are few options when it comes to calling home.
Iridium Satellite LLC remade itself to fill that niche. Iridium, a private company that resurrected a bankrupt satellite-phone business a year and a half ago, remodeled its consumer phone business into one that serves mostly military and industrial customers. It is even making inroads offering data services, which the company says will fuel its future growth.
Military and industrial customers typically aren't as sensitive to prices as consumers are, so they wouldn't balk at the $1.50 per minute it costs to use the phones.
Iridium, which is still privately held by undisclosed investors, has a two-year, $72 million contract with its largest customer, the Department of Defense. The company has other government contracts as well, but sales to private firms -- a division launched only a year ago -- are growing at more than 20 percent a month and now make up roughly half of its total revenue. Growth in its data business has outpaced what the company once expected; customers tend to e-mail and surf the Web longer than they tend to talk on the phone.
Thanks in part to that growth, the Arlington-based company could have made enough money to cover its annual costs of $90 million by the middle of this year, said Gino Picasso, chief executive of Iridium. Instead, the company decided to create a short-message service, so it won't break even on its expenses until next year, he said.
But just as its business has started to take off, Iridium is facing a regulatory predicament that may force the company to change its business once again.
By July 17, Iridium is required by regulators to sign a contract -- worth $1 billion to $3 billion -- to build and launch its next generation of 96 satellites.
That's in spite of the fact that its business could change entirely by 2012, the earliest date the company anticipates actually needing those new satellites.
The contract reserves space on the air waves for transmitting phone calls and e-mails from satellites. The Federal Communications Commission is requiring Iridium to sign the contract by July as a financial commitment for the continued use of those airwaves.
But ICO, a rival satellite company, is lobbying the FCC to allow it to use a different type of spectrum that would enable ICO to transmit its signals in urban areas and on the ground -- like a regular cell phone company.
If ICO gets approval for the terrestrial spectrum, Iridium would seek similar permission.
"It changes dramatically our business strategy," Picasso said of the ICO proposal. "That has a profound effect on how we design our system."
With terrestrial spectrum, Iridium could try to establish partnerships with wireless phone companies or try to compete with them, at least in part, Picasso said, but he added that Iridium is not yet sure exactly how use of spectrum on the ground would change its business.
Iridium is planning to abide by the July deadline and sign a contract for the satellites, but it hopes the FCC will grant it leniency if its plans change and the contract needs modifying, he said.
ICO, a London-based company with only one operating satellite, wants to be able to offer Internet connections at higher speeds -- 384 kilobits per second, roughly comparable to the speed of a cable-modem connection -- than Iridium's systems, which top out at 10 kilobits per second. ICO officials say its systems would also offer service everywhere, even in cities, where Iridium's phones must have a line of sight to the sky or a special antenna to receive the signal inside buildings.
Without the commission's approval for the terrestrial spectrum, the current model for satellite communications doesn't make sense, said Gerry Salemme, a spokesman and lobbyist for ICO. "We do not want to launch a satellite with a failed business plan," and right now, ICO's economic viability depends on the FCC approving its spectrum, he said.
Analysts and industry insiders believe the FCC will approve ICO's request in the next two months.
"I think it is quite likely that mobile satellite operators [both ICO and Iridium] are likely to get terrestrial service where satellite spectrum doesn't reach, like in New York City," said Rebecca Arbogast, an analyst with Legg Mason Wood Walker. "In general, the FCC is trying to encourage flexible use of spectrum."
That raises a lot of questions about Iridium's future plans, especially if it tries to compete with cellular providers -- a business it has tried and failed once before.
Iridium Satellite is the new and improved version of Iridium LLC, a business that ended in failure only nine months after it launched the service in 1998 -- primarily because its brick-like phones and its spotty service couldn't compete with the rapidly growing cellular phone business.
Cellular companies already have a very firm foothold in the consumer market, and even in the business users' market, Arbogast said. "Unless they have somehow managed to make progress in the areas that they stumbled on before -- high cost and clunky phones -- if they're able to address those problems, they may have some hope," she said. After all, "they are able to get a fair amount of mileage" from existing systems.
"They are like a phoenix that keeps rising from the fire," she said.
An I remember when the air was free. Aww, the good old days. Was it not on /. that I read that the FCC is wrong about the free airwaves anyway? I can not remember. There is no way that any company can really predict what it's business model will look like 10 years from now. What if in 10 years, they come up with a better way of communication links than satelite? Will the FCC refund their money? Hmm....
"This could become a milestone for making the service more ubiquitous, or the millstone that finally sinks it."
This is the cleverest turn of a phrase I have ever seen on Slashdot.
blah blah blah
I have had the opportunity to see these first hand a couple of times, and I can say they are super neat. If you are ever out camping, look it up and see if one is gonna pass over head. The above mentioned site has lots of resources on where they can be found.
pk
Engineers arn't boring people, we just get excited about boring things.
Interesting enough if anyone cares, iridium the element was discovered when dissolving platnum using aqua regia (acid).
Click here or here.
If the widespread use of Iridium can be had, then (given their close ties with DOD, and therefore other branches of the govt, like, say, the NSA), Iridium can be initimately linked with Echelon. This combined with a tiny explosive placed within every Iridium phone, would allow Echelon to automatically eliminate anyone who, through their own words, would represent a threat to the security of the peoples of the US. It would also be an excellent incentive for those who use their phones but are behind in payments.
Isn't the whole point of contracts to sign them once you are sure that you don't need to modify them? If you may require modification of a contract, why not design it into the contract at the start? On the other hand, I am not a satellite communications company, so they may know more about dealing with the FCC than me.
Showing for the first time at the Society for Information Display (SID) conference in Boston was a three-dimensional display with 100 million volume pixels or "voxels".
The Perspecta, which has been developed by Actuality Systems of Burlington, Massachusetts, was previously known as Helios (see related story).
It is a hardware and software combination that projects 3D images inside a 500 mm transparent spherical dome. Images 250 mm in diameter can be seen from a full 360 degrees without goggles, allowing the viewer to walk around the image.
The display is compatible with a number of molecular visualization software packages and 3D design software for drug development applications. Perspecta can be used to visualize protein structures and to plan surgical and radiation treatment by locating the exact position of a tumour on an x-ray or mammogram.
It could also be used in air traffic control, prototype designing and security scanning of luggage.
Perspecta uses Texas Instruments' digital light processor technology and a spinning projection screen, which sweeps the sphere. The result is the creation of 198 slices, each containing 76 x 768 pixels.
At the moment, the projection screen rotates 24 times per second, producing an unpleasant flicker. Actuality's chief technical officer, Gregg Favalora, told Optics.org that the company was working on increasing the spin rate to remove flicker.
Four prototypes have been made and ten pre-production systems will be built this year. Perspecta will sell for USD 40 000. Actuality is also developing a 3D laser pointer to go with the system.
Author
Phillip Hill is editor of Displays Europe and a contributing editor of Opto & Laser Europe magazine.
That was stupid. Iridium satellites gave each degree of latitude the same coverage, making the coverage densest (per km^2) at the poles, even though that's where it was the least needed! Let's have a few low inclination satellites where people need them.
slashdot is crap.
just wanted to stop in and say high your all sudo intellectuall fackers. fuck you ya fackin cacks.
go read some gnome chompsky you cacks.
Linux was made by G33ks who hate mycr0z0f! and like to piss in each others anus!
/dev/mem
LINUX SUCKS LINUX SUCKS LINUX SUCKS
THIS IS PAINFUL but its only a millionth of the pain you will endure while using linux!
There is no modem support
no printer support
no sound support
and no technical support
Linux is also very buggy and filled with security holes!
This article SHOWS THAT MICROSOFT WINDOWS HAS LESS HOLES THAN LINUX!
Go on, mod me as a troll, but remember this IS THE TRUTH AND THE PERSOn who moderates this is fucking lyer who fucking likes fucking goatsex while typing on a fucking command line!
The gui in linux sucks! The gnome desktop is a blatent rip off of the high quality motif desktop found in real unices! The fonts suck and if you want to install software you either compile it or use packages which have more dependancies than luxury palace in ceasar 3!
BOTTOM LINE LINUX SUCKS! and here is a command that crashes linux without being root and can be exploited!
$ yes >
I saw it spelled two different ways in the threads here, but this is the correct spelling.
i swear my userid used to be lower.
Michael Sims is the worst slashdot editor.. he should be fired.. don't you agree? I agree with the post.. please reply.. thanks
Get that rats nest off your head, you numbskull -- Wesley Willis
When I saw the headline I thought they were bringing back the classic C64 game.
You know the one, sideways scrolling shoot-em-up but you can go left or right at your whim, (a la defender), also you can flip sideways to fit through tight spots.
It really needed fast reactions (which I no longer have), but was a lot of fun at the time.
I suppose if they did do it now it would be in full 3D and probably suck. Then again, the original would probably suck if I played it again now.
Better leave it alone and save those nice memories.
graspee
http://slashdot.org/~recursiv/friends
couldn't resist could you?
Don't click this link
Couldn't resist that either could you?
It reminds me of a used Porsche I almost bought. After some calculations, I found that I could afford to buy the car but I couldn't afford to keep the car on the road.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The article doesn't mention other companies in the same sector like globalstar that is doing the same but much better than iridim? It doesn't have a single word about g-star - it looks like cheating. Be reasonable ... or don't publish.
>
Iridium originally got that spectrum under the conditions they got it because they promised satellite service. If they are not going to provide that, there is no reason to give them a lucrative government handout of spectrum for terrestrial uses.
An analogy would be that the government gives a company a piece of land for $1 under the condition that the company turns the land into a park. A few years later, that company hits financial problems and says "oh, wouldn't it be so much more profitable to put a factory here".
Iridium is old technology. It is not the best quality, but if your in a third world country and you need to tell someone your in trouble what else are you going to use that is cheap?
They've dropped the dual service and brought there rates down (about $1.50 a minute). Their network is paid for so they seem to be in a pretty good position if you ask me.
What is pirate software? Software for inventory of stolen treasure?
That would be impressive.
Osama Bin Laden's brother, Sheikh Hasan bin Laden, is [or was] a director of Iridium LLC, the company that brought Iridium out of bankruptcy. Shortly after the September 11 attacks, there were numerous press reports that the White House felt that Bush's movements in the late morning and early afternoon of September 11 were known to Al Qaeda. I have often wondered if someone in the greater Bin Laden clan was monitoring the extensive DOD traffic on Iridium. I emailed this theory to the White House, and to the FBI, but I never heard back from them.
The PowerPC lags behind its Intel and AMD competitors despite IBM's remarkable innovations in fabricating technology. The cellphone market, once Motorola's bread and butter, has been taken by the younger and hungrier Nokia. And we won't even get into the allegations of Motorola selling parts to make landmines to governments like Indonesia and Pakistan.
Motorola needs a drastic change in management, or it's not going to be around much longer. Last week I convinced my grandmother to dump all her Mot stock and go with Big Blue. I offer the same advice to all of you...
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
How the fuck could a person pay off their bills if they're just a fucking carcas? Don't you think slavery would better fit the situation. Say, $0.05 an hour for the rest of their pathetic lives. That should suffice.
You may be absolutely certain that the military and other government users don't pay nearly $1.50 a minute. In fact it's les expensive than the cellular costs that I am familiar with.
I tested the data service by using FTP to move some files this week and got a data throughput of about 4 seconds a kilobyte. The service compresses the data to get this rate. The rate was the same if I zipped the file and then sent it.
Iridium also provides secure encryption for the military and qualified governmnet users. A nice touch for those that need it.
Nate
Ha, people submit stories that actually get posted?!? That is the most ridiculous thing I have heard since someone said "Communism is dead," JFK I believe. The "submitter" of the story was simply CmdrTaco using good grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Hard to believe I know but just trust me...
powerpc is da shit d00d! if ya wanna use a r33l ch1p get an alpha d00d! we use em back in da ghetto fur word processin and dat excel spreadsh33t. muthafuckin poweful dem alphas r an its price is so low d00d i think em designers r wack or on crack!
Right, a contract once signed should not ever ever ever be subject to modification. People who sign contracts should have a firm grasp of all future events and circumstances or should just put down the pen. Next thing you know, we'd have divorce laws, the dissolution of the ABM treaty, Poland joining NATO, and Enron re-upping their accounting contract with Arthur Andersen.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a small mind."
Technological advances driven by wireless networking (both telecom and datacom) are starting to render obsolete the idea that spectrum is a severely limited resource that must be lorded and hoarded by the FCC. Ten years ago, during its planning, Iridium seemed like a technological miracle solution to an intractable problem. No one foresaw ubiquitous digital cell networks and two-cents-a-minute rates. Now these guys are supposed to peer another decade forward and once again envision what not only doesn't exist, but hasn't been invented...and then bind themselves to a cool billion or two of investment.
Stuff like this doesn't encourage innovation, it encourages entrenchment and protection of obsolete technologies.
You know this is just for the sake of twattish pedantry, but it was called "Uridium", not "Iridium".
I remember because I was so impressed by it on the C64, not least the noise the bay door made when you launched. I had an Amstrad CPC, and the Amstrad version was (as was all-too common) ported from the Spectrum, and was thus piss poor.
Christ, I must be bored.
The original problem with Iridium wasn't Motorola. The service worked (and still works) as designed. What went wrong, in my opinion, is that Iridium LLC targeted the wrong customer base! So, basically, the failure of the original Iridium can be chalked up to bad marketing. I should know...I used to work at the INA-H facility. 'Aikana
I never paid much attention to the Iridium company so I don't know if they fell out of the sky or not... but if they did and they want to put up a new, even more advanced generation of satellites then this isn't good for Radio Astronomers. If the original Iridium was interfering with their observations before, imagine how much trouble this new system will bring.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
I'd say the small diatribe turn out connected to this particularly dull blurb shows another for the 'miss' column, eh Hemos?
Get back under the porch with the rest of the outside vermin, pls.
in certain situations such as offshore sailing iridium has the best cost/performance. other systems like globalstar don't reach offshore, and inmarsat is too expensive and bulky and requires too much power.
yes! this is a test. really!