Sorry to disappoint all you Gates-obsessives, but his involvement was trivial - a $10M investment at the very beginning, mostly because Seattle billionaires are a cliquey bunch, and it was a polite gesture to Craig McCaw. Gates' active interest, or more accurately that of his private equity manager, dwindled to zero after a year or two.
There was never any question of Microsoft software running on the satellites, in fact we never got as far as even considering flight or communications software.
Wowbagger makes a fatal mistake in his analysis of satellite economics - the satellites in common with many others would use multiple (hundreds) spot beams, thus allowing massive frequency reuse.
My ten cents worth: Back in 1997 Boeing was ready, willing and competent to build a very capable constellation for a reasonable $US15Bn. But Motorola offered to do it for much less, so McCaw switched to them. MOT then progressively upped the price for a rudimentary system to US$20Bn. McCaw cancelled MOT in 2000, and by then all Teledesic's credibility was exhausted.
I was surprised to see that McCaw was advised by people who knew nothing of the rather specialised satellite business, and were yes-men, not even of the normal capitalist-bureaucratic type, but of a more medieval-feudal nature, which suited the atmosphere of the court of King Craig. Such poor management was the proximate reason for Teledesic's downfall. For corroboration, see the fate of ICO, another satellite company McCaw bought for US$1Bn in 2000, which is also now worthless.
As for helping poorer countries, it was an opportunity cost argument: most revenues would come from from the rural/exurban developed world and mobile users; the unused available capacity over poor countries would be heavily discounted, and so help to defuse international regulatory problems.
As you might guess, I for one am truly disappointed. Teledesic might not have ushered in a new golden age, but it could have really changed (for the better, for once) people's lives in both the rich and the poor world.
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Sorry to disappoint all you Gates-obsessives, but his involvement was trivial - a $10M investment at the very beginning, mostly because Seattle billionaires are a cliquey bunch, and it was a polite gesture to Craig McCaw. Gates' active interest, or more accurately that of his private equity manager, dwindled to zero after a year or two.
There was never any question of Microsoft software running on the satellites, in fact we never got as far as even considering flight or communications software.
Wowbagger makes a fatal mistake in his analysis of satellite economics - the satellites in common with many others would use multiple (hundreds) spot beams, thus allowing massive frequency reuse.
My ten cents worth: Back in 1997 Boeing was ready, willing and competent to build a very capable constellation for a reasonable $US15Bn. But Motorola offered to do it for much less, so McCaw switched to them. MOT then progressively upped the price for a rudimentary system to US$20Bn. McCaw cancelled MOT in 2000, and by then all Teledesic's credibility was exhausted.
I was surprised to see that McCaw was advised by people who knew nothing of the rather specialised satellite business, and were yes-men, not even of the normal capitalist-bureaucratic type, but of a more medieval-feudal nature, which suited the atmosphere of the court of King Craig. Such poor management was the proximate reason for Teledesic's downfall. For corroboration, see the fate of ICO, another satellite company McCaw bought for US$1Bn in 2000, which is also now worthless.
As for helping poorer countries, it was an opportunity cost argument: most revenues would come from from the rural/exurban developed world and mobile users; the unused available capacity over poor countries would be heavily discounted, and so help to defuse international regulatory problems.
As you might guess, I for one am truly disappointed. Teledesic might not have ushered in a new golden age, but it could have really changed (for the better, for once) people's lives in both the rich and the poor world.