On 6/29/2011 7:00 PM, George wrote:
On 6/29/2011 6:05 PM, aemeijers wrote:
On 6/29/2011 9:41 AM, Smitty Two wrote:
In ,
wrote:

I think all these writers predicting the end of last-decade technology
have never been to fly-over country. Desktops and laptops, and hard
cable internet connections, will be with us for the next couple of
decades, unless somebody invents a new way to blanket the country with
wireless signal.

Iridium might have succeeded, but it was 20 yrs. ahead of its time.
Maybe it's time to try that approach again.

Iridium is still there, with DoD as a silent partner. Absurdly
expensive, though, and as cell coverage footprint worldwide increases,
used less and less.


But at least they moved away from their initial bend over and grab your
ankles if you want to use it guaranteed to fail business model pricing.

DoD didn't have much choice but to step in- they were about to de-orbit
the birds, as required by multi-country agreement when a satt provider
goes belly-up. (Don't need dark junk up there, etc.) DoD needed portable
semi-secure comms Real Bad, and Iridium was the only ready-to-go tool on
the shelf at the time. So, they set up their own ground station in
Hawaii, got a vendor to do a comsec module for the original 2 versions
of the handsets, and not much has changed since then. The original
handsets are orphans at this point, (charging station even has a socket
for a Moto StarTac phone on it), but nobody has made a secure module for
newer handsets that meets DoD standards, which the commercial crypto
modules sold by other brands of satt phones do not.

All in all, a shotgun wedding that will dissolve as soon as either side
has a better option available.

--
aem sends...