Iridium Saved? 57
Ekeron writes: "Spaceflightnow.com reports that:
'The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the
Southern District of New York today
approved the bid of Iridium Satellite LLC
to purchase the operating assets of
Iridium LLC and its subsidiaries.
Iridium Satellite LLC will continue to provide commercial satellite
communications to the U.S. Government and plans to re-launch
affordable satellite communications services to those industry
segments that have a particular need for satellite communications
(government, military, humanitarian, heavy industry, maritime,
aviation, adventure) within 60 days.'
Get the full story at: Spaceflightnow."
Iridium can be rescued, but it won't work. (Score:1)
Iridium's design is flawed by nature, and instead of maturing their product before launching, they just threw a bunch of money on dozens of satellites, and relayed this cost to the users of the service -- how does it cost anyway? US$ 10 a minute, I've heard? Unless you're climbing the Everest or something like that, plain old cell phones will cover most of the locations you'll need, with a smaller cost, plus you're not required to carry along the "mobile" unit -- if you can regard that as mobile, even my SC-750A case could!
We are down to only a few cellular standards, and as long as one or two out of these standards is chosen (which is far beyond utopic, but hope springs eternal), dual-mode cell phones (supporting say GSM and CDMA 3G) were manufactured, and companies launched calling card-like plans, most Iridium users' needs would be fullfiled -- plus you won't pay as much while carrying a single phone.
I can't stress enough how utopic this is -- but then again, so was Iridium.
Makes sense (Score:2)
Now that they are bankrupt, it only makes sense that someone would pick them up for next to nothing. Now the new company doesn't have the debt overhead from launching all those satellites. This means that they only have to maintain operational break-even to stay alive. They don't have to pay the interest on their debt.
Of course, this only works until the satellites run out of fuel (they have to periodically adjust their orbits or go down in flames). Then they have to start launching replacement satellites. However, if they can build up enough of a user base before then, they might be able to pull it off. (And the replacement satellites could provide all sorts of additional capabilities.)
Re:saved, or scavenged? (Score:2)
Intellectual property also might refer to their software for running the system, which is quite necessary.
Put Mir in the Off-Again column (Score:2)
Mir should be a bit more eventful than de-orbiting Iridium satellites since "Much of the giant spacecraft will burn up on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere before most of the remainder ditches into the sea. Officials have said that parts of the craft could hit land."
And in other news... (Score:1)
I heard it on NPR's "All Things Considered" this morning on my way into work.
Funny, but yesterday I heard a report that the Russians were getting ready to send up a couple of cosmonauts to play Mir rangers again.
Re:Space Junk (Score:2)
Re:If at first you don't succeed.... fail again (Score:1)
AKAIK the US Government was one of the biggest customers of Iridium. It makes sense for them to try to go after specific segments of the market. It was a dumb move in the first place to offer it as they did - as a service for anyone. The majority of people will never need 100% coverage. Any good business will go after a specific niche and dominate it. What they're doing now is what they should have done in the first place.
Re:Space Junk (Score:1)
Well, actually
One of the high-up muckety-mucks from Iridium used to visit the Andersen Consulting office writing the rating software for Iridium. He liked to relate they had an awfully hard time getting lots of the world's non-industrialized nations to agree to allow Iridium satellites to beam the bandwidth assigned to them within those countries' airspace. So they had to resort to various negotiations to get this to pass
One of the bargaining points used in much of Africa and the far east (such as India) was that Iridium LLC would plant phone kiosks in any village or town over some minimum population X (X was, I believe, in the hundreds, or even dozens, not the thousands). These kiosks would be available for free use by anyone in the village, to call anywhere in the world.
Admittedly, the folks in those small villages in the middle of Africa might have very little reason to call Topeka, KS
Bring down those satellites, and we're back to something like 60% of the world's population once again waiting for their local area to somehow be able to afford to lay (what they would consider) very expensive copper wire out to the middle of BFE, as well as setting up the substations in the local villages for running the local phone system.
So I'd say that's one potentially valuable use for the existing multi-billion dollar satellites
(And I know that Iridium didn't fail because of paying Andersen's prices
Re:Ugh, I hate those new acronyms. (Score:1)
PLC means "Private Limited Company" and is the British equivalent of "Co." Again, far from being an innovation.
While it is hard to dispute your use of "moronic" when referring to the behavior of executives, I think it's probably not a fad to tell people what kind of company you have.
Re:Theres only one thing left to do... (Score:1)
Put a stake in it! (Score:2)
I mean, here I am, I've come up with a means to provide global telephone coverage (the description of which is to large to fit into this margin), so how can I deploy my monopo^H^H^H^H^Hcompetitive service with this sword of Damocles over my head?
Somebody call the Slayer....
How much money (Score:1)
How much money do they have to lose before they get shut down? These satellites are polluting our view of OH masers in the galaxy.
What about Silver/SSC/Parallax's allegations? (Score:1)
A financing company called Silver tried to bid on Iridium's assets (on behalf of SSC/Parallax) but the bid was allegedly ignored while Wilber (the law firm representing the debtor) allegedly organized a "backroom deal" with Colussy/Iridium Satellite LLC (even though Silver's bid was higher).
Words like "fraud" and "collusion" were used... Anybody know what the real deal is???
Is iridium useful for wireless broadband? (Score:1)
This could bring broadband to remote areas. I'm sure you could easily charge upwards of $80 - $100 / month for broadband in areas where there are no other alternatives.
Why.. (Score:1)
There's one failure salvaged and made a success. (Score:1)
Re:Theres only one thing left to do... (Score:2)
My business plan is to shoot down crazy satellites one by one with a "laser". I'll hire a bunch of Anonymous Cowards to build it, then launch it into space.
If it works especially well, I'll start shooting down normal satellites one by one, also, and if I ever get to shooting down satellites owned by companies that make money, I'll demand ransom before shooting them down, and maybe you can get some return on your investment.
Iridium down in flames - NOT (Score:2)
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Usual claptrap about Iridium and their marketing (Score:2)
One of their problems: VERY expensive equipment (but they do come in fancy trapezoidal boxes with a neat holographic design), and frankly, if Iridium had come up with better marketing and maybe a little bit better support from other companies in the industry (for example, Globalstar has Qualcomm, Ericsson and some other manufacturer to support them) they might have been fine.
The other problem with Iridium was their high pricing for service. Believe me, 150CDN$/mo (?) for 2 sat zones of paging coverage with VoiceNet (PageNet's voicemail/dispatch service) is a lot of dough. 4 zones would cover North America including Alaska, if I recall correctly. I can get that type of service with PageMart (now Weblink Wireless in the USA, Bell Mobility in Canada) for a bit less. Don't quote me on that price though, it's been long since I got my last Iridium bill.
Space Junk (Score:4)
This is kind of a pack rat mentality with satellites, don't you think?
I mean, I see all these Slashdotters who don't want to see all these satellites end up in the Pacific Ocean somewhere, but can we actually think of a good use for any of these things? Probably not. Mir is/was useful, but it's old, slightly dangerous, and about to become obsolete by the ISS (or any other future projects like it). On the other hand, Iridium was practically useful to almost no-one, although their sale now indicates that someone thought of something it could do...
And it does have a substantial cost to government/commercial agencies to keep track of and control these things in orbit. "Sentimental value" means pretty much nothing to taxpayers and stockholders...
But... more importantly... we have to realize the concept of sunk costs, and we must make practical decisions for the future... that is, do we spend money keeping these satellites up, or do we use that money for better satellites down the line?
In this particular case, it would have been interesting to see Iridium make it as a company. But if they didn't, and we had to de-orbit the satellites, why boo-hoo about it? It's a responsible decision. And no one's going to be operating a ham-radio network or something like that off of all those very expensive satellites, so unless someone's got a great use for them, why bother?
The upside is that we get to see more Iridium Flares... (if someone remembers what I'm talking about, there's a website for it, but I forgot the link...)
Another Fedex? (Score:4)
Iridium could go on to be as successful as Federal Express -- it just didn't meet early expectations and while that isn't death for business in the long run, it is highly damaging for the early participants.
Sorry, link didn't take (Score:1)
Echelon? Naaah :) Can't be... (Score:1)
Why - oh why won't you use our fine network?! Please?
Now - seriously - why would anyone think that someone in their right minds would want to bring down such a network while it can be so easily used "for fun and profit(tm)".
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Of Course Iridium Will Be Saved... (Score:4)
The government never has enough satellites, really, maybe this is the first reverse pork: government somehow conned industry into pissing away a whole lot of money on something for them for a change
But seriously, I think the original Iridium tried to move too quickly into too broad of a market. They frittered away a lot of money on ads and PR to people who had no use for the stuff, and didn't concentrate on a smaller, specialist market that could actually use the system.
The military likes to subcontract to commercial providers, and will probably be happy to have unsecure comms moved off their proprietary network. Humanitarian? Most groups have no money, but the UN does... So do shipping companies, and constant contact with your vessels (whatever they may be) can cut costs drastically by allowing for more precise dynamic rerouting of whatever your cargo is through your system. The adventure industry is also quite wealthy - hey, I bet Survivor III producers will sign up immediately
You and I may not need this service, but some people do, and maybe Motorola, in addition to lack of focus, just put the wrong people on selling it...
Mir... (Score:1)
Oh well. The Russians want to sink the Mir into the Pacific Ocean.
Why couldn't they have targeted the Millennium Dome instead?!
oh yeah. (Score:2)
sure i know people will start telling me how it's cheaper to use iridium satellites than to launch new ones, and to those i say: research! why do you think it didn't work in the first place?, they're technically flawed and too expensive to maintain. yes on a 5-8 year plan, it's chepaer to launch new equipment.
The US government is a big Iridium customer (Score:1)
The new Iridim Satellite LLC probally got the satellites cheep enough to justify the limited target market.
NOTICE: ARTICLE LINKS WRONG! (Score:2)
Please note that we have linked the article "Iridium Saved?" in error. It should go to:
At Last, Mir to be Ditched [slashdot.org]
In fact, Mir has yet again been saved, and Iridium has once again been ditched.
Slashdot apologizes for continuously reporting the news before happens on these two issues.
It gets boring... (Score:1)
I wonder who those bankers are... (Score:4)
In early 1999, I visited Motorola and spoke to some of their engineers. One of them laughingly referred to the Iridium (or "Satellite Series Phone") division as the place where "old engineers go to die." I didn't exactly understand what he meant until I actually used the equipment.
Don't get me wrong, it's a great idea, I, personally, believe there is some (albeit limited) market for direct-to-satellite communication, but it's only as good as the implementation. Has anyone else actually used iridium? It's miserable!
Besides being big and clunky, there are fundamental problems that haven't been addressed.
- Satellite handoff is still shaky; in areas where as little as 10% of the sky is occluded (the world ain't flat... most of you have hills or buildings blocking some part of the sky), you can miss handoff. Some of the pass times for the satellites are about 2 minutes... I had a phone at my disposal for about six weeks, and it was rare that I was able to make a call longer than 30seconds. Usually I'd get through "I'm using Iridium, so if I get cut off..."
- It seems the handset designers failed to build in any multipath rejection. Even when the signal quality was high, calls routinely had an echo or ended up garbled. I'm no expert on the topic, but one of my friends who designs GPS equipment says that MPR is pretty-much a straightforward process that was clearly ignored.
- Service is subject to the hiccups of the "local" telephone service. For political reasons, Iridium put one terrestrial downlink on each continent. As part of their licensing agreements with all of the countries, calls have to be routed through the nearest downlink. Calls go up, they come right back down. I was in the Himalaya and my calls went up and down... to India! More than once, disturbances of the land lines in India blacked out central Asia for hours on end.
- Iridium won't do data, at least not well. Each sattellite connection has a maximum of 2400 baud... and only if you route through the US downlink (which, if you were paying attention, means that you have to be in North America). Once upon a time, a long time ago, the Mot engineers were trying to build a data module to allow multiple connections and load balancing, but I don't think it ever materialized.
And the economic challenges:- Globalstar, a competitor is on the verge of closing its doors from lack of clients. How does dividing a client base of essentially zero generate revenue?
- Back when Iridium first declared bankruptcy, the original loaning institutions feared that they may have to pay more to deorbit the satellites. It sent the debt price for Iridium LLC to nothing. Not only did investors go to $#!^, the banks were now liable for the costs of keeping the birds up or bringing them down. Whoever bought it must have assumed those liabilities...
- The constellation reqires maintenence. Even if they don't have any (or much) initial cost left to recoup, the satellites have a 5-15 year lifespan. Starting in about 2003, they're going to have to start replacing birds if they have any chance of maintaining service.
It seems to me that Iridiums "assets" are inferior, expensive equipment, with a limited lifespan and big price tag. What do they have of real value? Military contracts and communication licenses with almost every nation. The real question: do those assets offset the liability assumed by the constellation. It will be interesting to see what Iridium Satellite LLC will do with the contracts.Keep watching /. My bet is that we see another "Iridium Crashes" headline soon.
On another note, the (already suffering) Globalstar (GSTRF) didn't change on this news.
Nobody seems to care about this one.
Seize the opportunity! (Score:1)
Adjacent Slashdot stories today:
Howzabout we break Mir into nice small pieces, safe for de-orbiting, by smashing Iridium satellites into it? Both Motorola and the Russian space program could make some money filming the fireworks, perhaps from a shuttle parked a safe distance away. Maybe stuff Mir full of brighly colored plastic beads first, so they can spray out like from a broken pinata when one of the satellites finally cracks the hull open.
Just a thought...
saved, or scavenged? (Score:2)
- Under the agreement, Iridium Satellite LLC will purchase all of the
existing assets of Iridium LLC, including the satellite constellation,
the terrestrial network, Iridium real property and intellectual
property owned by Iridium LLC.
I've heard that despite costing billions, Iridium was disposable because of the tens of billions of dollars in related technology that was developed alongside of it, which basically paid for the experiment many times over. Investement recouped, next project please. No problem.But is that going to happen again? Does Iridium Satellite LLC really want to use the system, or are they only able to get at the wonderful intellectual property through buying the whole damned thing? Is Iridium Satellite small enough that it can find profit where others thought it wasn't to be found before?
I'm kinda glad that they're staying up.. although it would have made some excellent viewing, watching each satellite plunge through the atmosphere...
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
Wow.. a portable 2600!!! (Score:1)
Heh.. nevermind... that was another story on slashdot that I am sick of reading about... hmm reminds me of this iridium thing tho it does.
Re:Iridium can be rescued, but it won't work. (Score:1)
From the summit, one climber was able to call Mom, but 45 minutes of subsequent calls failed... including one to the CEO of Motorola.
Wavelengths (Score:1)
Re:Iridium down in flames - NOT (Score:2)
...phil
Re:Space Junk (Score:2)
Also, the cost of launching such satellites from square one is always a consideration when deciding whether or not to use an existing constellation, but you also have to think that satellites are not very versatile to begin with - they're designed to fit their purpose, and usually don't come with a lot of extras. I was quite surprised, for example, that the bandwidth coming off of the Iridium satellites was rather paltry (something like 9.6 kbps) when, perhaps, if they could handle 300kbps channels instead, Iridium could have been a portable broadband contender. Retrofitting satellites for increased capacity, however, is not an option... it's at least far cheaper (and possible) to just launch another bunch of satellites.
And, I think it's better to put money in the bank for a future constellation of cheaper, higher bandwidth (T3 speeds to anywhere!) satellites rather than spend it all just keeping track of and maintaining an existing, somewhat unuseful network.
Of course, in this case, the satellites are cheap anyway: the reason why Iridium is defunct as a business is that they couldn't make enough money to keep up with their massive debt payments. So, now they're bankrupt, and their creditors (the satellite builders and launchers) get paid virtually nothing - which in the end, means that the satellites now cost almost nothing to build and launch, for whoever wants them. I might be exaggerating the cost of maintaining the constellation - that part might be actually very cheap, hence cash burn wouldn't be a problem for anyone who gets the assets but not the debt.
Re:Theres only one thing left to do... (Score:1)
Re:This is getting old... (Score:1)
Iridium Satellite LLC? (Score:1)
Re:If at first you don't succeed.... fail again (Score:1)
F-P (Score:1)
We miss out on fireworks
Well, time to wait for Mir...
If at first you don't succeed.... fail again (Score:3)
So their target groups are
The Goverment... who already own loads of their own sats.
Humanitarian Groups, who just have LOADS of spare cash... not.
and a few others.
Am I the only one who thinks that the fact that the humble mobile (GSM) will work over a goodly proportion of the globe and is cheap and reliable is quite an effective way for those that require such communication to get it. Put up a few more cells in a country and you shut out the need for a very very expensive satellite.
What will the satellite offer... 100% coverage. And how many organisations need that, bugger all. And for the cases where they are out of touch with mobile will they use the sat solution everywhere else as well as just the out of touch places... probably not.
And boo.com is back as well.
Are we seeing another period in economics, there was boom and bust, now we have stupidity and sanity cycles.
I see they have a proven winner at the helm (Score:1)
dammit! I wanted to tape the fireworks! (Score:2)
Mir-ridium (Score:2)
This is getting old... (Score:2)
i am beginning to think that all this story exists only too keep some balance in the worldwide economy policy of taking advatage and things. like, a drain or something.
did you know that lots of (edible) food is thrown away while it could very well be given to the poor? think the rest yourself
yes (Score:1)
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Iridum Saved, News at 11! (Score:2)
Maybe they can drop Iridum and Mir at the same time, and the specific combination of space fungii they've accumulated can get together and breed and form a new breed of earth-eating space fungus. That would be an amusing end to an anoying couple of stories...
Re:Space Junk (Score:2)
Streamline (Score:1)
Ugh, I hate those new acronyms. (Score:1)
Enough! When they devised those three about two years ago, every single new company used them (Saitek PLC, Iridium LLC, etc.). This only goes to show that when moronic executives get their hands on obscure acronyms, chaos ensues.
Good Luck! (or not) (Score:1)
If, however, this is simply a buch of VC ho's looking for a handout while they run another Iridium company to the ground, I hope someone calls thier bluff before the technology is squandered (again!)
-Ross
Circumvention? (Score:1)
Damn! (Score:1)
This just in, folks... (Score:3)
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Re:If at first you don't succeed.... fail again (Score:2)