On Aug 4, 7:15�pm, "J. Clarke" wrote:
Jerry wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:

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.

Iridium is still alive and providing communication services to your
gummint. The company that stepped in and bought the infrastructure
for
pennies on the dollar (actually, less than 1/2 cent on the dollar,
if
you believe Wikipedia) after the bankruptcy was able to make a
profit
when they didn't have the debt service for putting 66 satellites in
low earth orbit (72 if you count the on-orbit spares).

Jerry (an ex-Motorolan who thankfully didn't work on Iridium)

Well, it's kind of alive. �Iridium went under and a new company that
called itself "Iridium" bought the pieces for 4/10 of a cent on the
dollar or thereabouts. �And they've managed to attract only about
250,000 customers vs the cell phone industry's 2 billion or so.
Further, the satellites are going to start dying in a few years and so
far the new Iridium has talked about new launches but not done any.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)- Hide quoted text -

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the original company came close to snding all the satellites on a last
dive in the pacific as to avoid a fleet of derelict satellites.

it was a close thing, like within a week