5 Konstellasjoner - Iridium
Iridium communications service was launched on November 1, 1998 and went into Chapter
11 bankruptcy on August 13, 1999.
Its financial failure was largely due to insufficient demand for the service. The increased
coverage of terrestrial cellular networks (e.g. GSM) and the rise of roaming agreements
between cellular providers proved to be fierce competition. The cost of service was also
prohibitive for many users, despite the continuous world-wide coverage of the Iridium
service. In addition, the bulkiness and expense of the handheld devices when compared to
terrestrial cellular mobile phones discouraged adoption among users.
Mismanagement has also been cited as a major factor in the program's failure. In 1999 CNN
writer David Rohde detailed how he applied for Iridium service and was sent information kits,
but was never contacted by a sales representative. He encountered programming problems on
Iridium's website and a "run-around" from the company's representatives. After Iridium filed
bankruptcy it cited its "difficulty [in] gaining subscribers".
The initial commercial failure of Iridium has had a dampening effect on other proposed
commercial satellite constellation projects, including Teledesic. Other schemes (Orbcomm,
ICO Global Communications, and Globalstar) followed Iridium into bankruptcy protection,
while a number of proposed schemes were never constructed.
The Iridium satellites were, however, retained in orbit, and their services were re-established
in 2001 by the newly founded Iridium Satellite LLC, owned by a group of private investors.
Iridium kommunikasjonssystem ble satt i drift 1. november 1998.
Fig 5.1 http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~worfolk/SaVi/images/iridium_big.gif
Referanser:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_%28satellite%29