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What was the reason for bankruptcy? was it because it was not able to compete with Cellular operators?
by nebula 12y ago
What was the reason for bankruptcy? was it because it was not able to compete with Cellular operators?
- Animats 12y agoVery high airtime costs. The system has great coverage, but low bandwidth. Also, the handset has to be able to see the sky. When Iridium was planned, it was expected that most mobile units would be vehicle-mounted, not handsets.
- riffraff 12y agoIIRC the antenna was also _huge_ making it completely unpractical for handsets.
- upofadown 12y agoNot that big. The small antenna was a primary feature of the system. They even make candy bar style phones with built in antennas. https://www.iridium.com/ProductList.aspx?productCategoryID=1 https://www.iridium.com/ProductList.aspx?productCategoryID=1
- apercu 12y agoMotorola expected to sell a lot more hardware (read phones) and when there wasn't demand they cut bait.