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Iridium Pushes Ahead Satellite Project
oxide7 writes "Iridium (IRDM) continues its push into the market for satellite data and telemetry services, as it announced the company that would build its second generation of satellites. Iridium's old network of 66 satellites was designed for voice calls; the new satellites will also be able to handle data more efficiently, and include cameras as well. The company also plans to share the satellite platforms with some scientists for use in studying the Earth."
bbc has a nice article on that too: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10212836.stm
Satellite communications is expensive (and naturally the market is smaller than terrestrial phones so even at the same cost the price per subscriber would need to be greater). Higher data rates require greater SNR and therefore larger antennas. Receivers also need to consume more power to acquire and process a low SNR signal. Perhaps they can improve these things incrementally, but they're kind of fundamental to the nature of their service.
The first OSCAR ham radio satellite was paid for by collecting spare change from thousands ham radio operators around the planet, so there are small groups who have flown satellites.