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.

Iridium was launched in late 1998. AMPS cell systems were available
~1985. I had a cellphone at least 7 years prior to the launch of Iridium.

Iridium needs a clear view of the sky so it could never deliver the
expectations people have for cell phone use.

Its major niche was providing global service where other services
couldn't. I think the major failure was they kept the price too high
which scared people off. The equipment cost would never allow them to
compete with terrestrial systems on price but users will pay for value.
They could have acquired a much higher user base if they lowered their
price.