In a word. NO. As my name implies, I am an ex-Iridium person. One of my last tasks was with the data team trying to get data services to work over the network. Here are some of the facts of the system 2400bps Vocoder, thats it. Without compression, you are talking 1988 modem speeds. Also total network capacity, each sat can only handle about 1100 simultaneos calls. The antenas just can't pick up any more. With a network of 66 operational satalittes, that means ~72600 calls, and that includes the 2/3rds of the world covered by water. So there is just not much capacity to go high volume. BTW: in the end data service worked well with the last set of phone software released. The only hitch was that transmission delay caused by the seam in the satallite orbits would cause IP to break when the seam was between the phone and the gateway.
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In a word. NO. As my name implies, I am an ex-Iridium person. One of my last tasks was with the data team trying to get data services to work over the network. Here are some of the facts of the system 2400bps Vocoder, thats it. Without compression, you are talking 1988 modem speeds. Also total network capacity, each sat can only handle about 1100 simultaneos calls. The antenas just can't pick up any more. With a network of 66 operational satalittes, that means ~72600 calls, and that includes the 2/3rds of the world covered by water. So there is just not much capacity to go high volume. BTW: in the end data service worked well with the last set of phone software released. The only hitch was that transmission delay caused by the seam in the satallite orbits would cause IP to break when the seam was between the phone and the gateway.