CBS Uses TV Compression Technology To Get In Extra Commercial

Is Iridium Back?

from the nah,-probably-not dept

Fri, Nov 9th 2001 12:38am — Mike Masnick

Is Iridium back? The company that bought billions of dollars worth of assets from the original Iridium for just $25 million (and immediately signed a contract for $72 million from the US Dept. of Defense) is saying they're back and better than the original Iridium. They may be back, and they may even be better, but some still think they're going to fail. At least they're not trying to be all things to all people, and they've lowered the costs of the damn thing. However, it's still really expensive, and cell phone service and coverage is increasingly getting better. If anything, Iridium's market is going to keep shrinking over time.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

5 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

niobium, 9 Nov 2001 @ 1:42am

Huh?
Iridium's market is not the same as the cellphone market - the fact that cellphoen coverage is getting better in the USA is entirely irrelevant (The civilised world has perfectly good coverage already, thank you). Iridium is for places like the Amazon jungle or the Himalyas whioch are never going to have cellphone coverage.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Mike (profile), 9 Nov 2001 @ 1:50am
  
  Re: Huh?
  (1) People who need phones in the Amazon jungle and the Himalayas is a very small market.
  
  (2) The article points out that cell phones are workin on ways to cover those types of areas as well.
  
  My point is that no matter what, the market is only going to decrease rather than increase.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ricardo, 8 Jun 2006 @ 8:55am

Mike, the amazon market is indeed a small market compared to the larger markets out there, but you are not looking at the whole picture. There are plenty of places not already populated with no cell coverage, in addition to our vast giant oceans. Take a look at this URL for more information on world population density http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density . Don't make the assumption that just because these places are so remote that someone needing a phone would not be there. That is a very naive assumption. I think Iridium is great for that other market needing phones where coverage is not available.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Mike (profile), 8 Jun 2006 @ 11:25am
  
  Re:
  Ricardo,
  
  I think you misread the point of my post. I'm not saying that those markets don't exist, just that they're small and shrinking. For the people who want it, that's great. The point was that Iridium was supposed to be this big, mass market product, and it's obviously a very niche one.
  
  I know that there are places where there's no cell service. The point is that the market size for catering to those people is small.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Derek Kerton (profile), 8 Jun 2006 @ 3:02pm

In Support Of Mike
Mike is right on this one. You commentors are both correct that dis-connected places DO exist, and will for a long, long time. But Iridium, and other failed Satellite Internet companies were not planning on making a living selling services to these most remote places.

In fact, their business plans, hashed out in the late 80s, included revenues from cities and urban areas in places like Africa and the Amazon. But by the time the satellite services launched, these urban areas had been covered by terrestrial cellular. Thus, a huge chunk of the expected revenue and market opportunity vanished, leaving the long tail of people who want to connect in the middle of nowhere.

I was in the Amazon, on the river itself... talking on my freaking cellphone! Sure, I was near Manaus at the time, but so were most of the other people in the region who could afford, and wanted, to make a phone call. Surely there were a few folks upriver who might by an Iridium phone, but put them all together from around the world, and you don't have enough customers to fund the business. And that fact is proven.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]