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Iridium wasn't intended for internet -- it was intended for voice only. And by the time they got enough birds in the air, most areas were covered by at least o
by derekp7 11y ago
Iridium wasn't intended for internet -- it was intended for voice only. And by the time they got enough birds in the air, most areas were covered by at least one voice provider, so the only potential market was people that traveled frequently to remote areas. Not to mention that you could never have a handset that fit in your pocket.
Now the way I thought Iridium should have been constructed, is to have the uplink be a portable micro cell unit, that regular phones could roam to. That way you would only need one Iridium phone, maybe located outside, and others could use their existing phones to connect to it.
- seanp2k2 11y agoFWIW this is kind of what they do on e.g. racing sailboats offshore; a central uplink hooks into the satellites and distributes internet onboard via wifi. It's slow and expensive, but let's you do things like pull weather reports from the middle of the Atlantic, post your progress back to race control and your family / friends, etc.