Iridium Files for Bankruptcy

MadShark writes "I found this article on Excite about Iridium LLC filing for bankruptcy after defaulting on 1.5 billion dollars in loans. But don't be too hasty about throwing out that handset. The article also says, "Motorola said it would continue full operational support for Iridium and all current and future subscribers during the company's reorganization. It said it would continue to invest in the technology and to develop the next generation of Iridium products."

Comments

Voice modems

[SEWilco]

So you make your sound card say "one" and "zero" and the computer on the other end of the phone line uses voice recognition to rebuild the data stream.

Once you have that working you set up a constellation where 64 different words represent various combination of bit sequences so you send several bits per word...

So Gore Sold Us Out For Nothing

[Fleet Admiral Ackbar]

Let me get this straight...

Iridium needs a cheap launch, so...

Motorola decides to launch in China, so...

China can't get their booster to work, so...

After heavy DNC contributions, the Vice President signs a waiver authorizing limited missile tech to China, so...

Iridium sats are launched, but...

China uses the same tech to create the "Long March", so...

they announce first-strike capability against the U.S., so...

Clinton does nothing, so...

now they can nuke us, and we did it all so that Iridium sats could launch, and now...

THEY'RE BANKRUPT?

That's fantastic. We've given our most probable major enemy first-strike capability just so the DNC can afford to re-elect Gore, and the company that paid everyone off can't even bother to stick around and provide decent service.

Aw, heck.

This could be good for consumers...

[Ami Ganguli]

If they end up going into bankruptcy somebody will get those sattelites for a song. It might be possible for some company to offer the service at a reasonable price if they don't have that huge debt to pay off.