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Teledesic Comes Down to Earth
hibachi writes "Teledesic, the ambitious plan to build a constellation of low-earth orbiting satellites for global broadband services, has died on the assembly room floor. According to this press release, "the company does not believe that it is prudent, purely on speculation, to continue the substantial capital expenditures required to construct and launch the satellites consistent with the timing required to meet FCC and ITU regulatory milestones." Brainchild of Bill Gates and Craig McCaw, Teledesic held the promise of globally ubiquitous high speed Internet. It seems Teledesic's plans grew less ambitious over the years until finally the painful lessons of Iridium, and the current telecom climate, drove the last nails in its coffin. I am sad to see this happen."
Gives a whole new meaning to "never got off the ground".
...someone DID imagine a Beowulf cluster of them.
If they're going cheap, they might make a pretty impressive IEEE 802.11 antenna.
To paraphrase Lyndon Johnson:
"I myself do not want to go to bed by the light of a Microsoft moon."
Evil is the money of root.