In article ,
"J. Clarke" wrote:

Smitty Two wrote:
In article ,
"J. Clarke" wrote:

Reed wrote:
snip

BTW, a few years ago I heard of plans for a network of Low-Earth
Orbit satellites, that would avoid this problem. I wonder what
happened to that?

snip

check here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledesic

I suspect the project died because it still had excessive latency,
especially since they had to add an "internal" protocol to the
network because the LEOs are not stationary in the sky. (never
mind the *astronomical* cost(pun intended))

Iridium and Globalstar, both much less ambitious projects, failed
to
even come close to recovering the startup costs. That being the
case, Teledisc was clearly a non-starter. People who need that
kind
of service will pay quite a lot for it, but not enough to pay for
800
satellites.

--

Iridium was launched when cell phones were a rarity. If it had been
launched today, it might have succeeded.

Cell phones are what _killed_ it. Nobody's going to pay a buck-thirty
a minute for satphone airtime when for a hundred bucks a month they
can get unlimited cell phone airtime. The only people willing to do
that are those who have to communicate from somewhere where there is
no cell service.

It's a niche product and the niche isn't big enough to pay for the
launch costs.

--

I see your point, but still I disagree. The whole concept of talking on
a phone while wandering around (by foot, car, or mule) was new, novel,
and somewhat gimmicky. Wireless communication wasn't seen as a necessity
at all back then, the way it is now.

Iridium missed the paradigm shift. Millions of executives now would
happily pay that price to avoid dead zones and dropped calls. And the
price would decline as the subscriber based went up.