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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."
Not only will they have to reinvent themselves, but they will have to dodge falling satallites.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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".
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
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.
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