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I wouldn’t call it an iridium invention either. The military has been using satellites to send messages before Iridium.

• lxgr 3y ago
  Definitely, but Iridium was the first constellation offering 100% global coverage using inter-satellite links, and as far as I know they also pioneered the "bulky cell phone" form factor (as opposed to briefcase- or backpack-sized terminals).
  • renewiltord 3y ago
    Yeah, some incremental improvements on existing technology for sure. Definitely worth that credit.
    • lxgr 3y ago
      It was an absolute marvel of technology for its time, in my view. I think they really were the first to do in-space inter-satellite routing. If you call one Iridium phone from another, the call will never touch any earth-side infrastructure (after call setup). And they've been the only ones doing that until Starlink recently launched inter-satellite links. All of that in 1998, when everybody else was still doing "bent-pipe" style satellite communications, and putting things into space was still prohibitively expensive!