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Iridium: Services
built 284 days ago
Iridium communications service was launched on November 1, 1998 and went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy on August 13, 1999. The first Iridium call was made by then-Vice President of the United States Al Gore. Motorola provided the technology and major financial backing.
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Iridium is the first and only truly global paging service. Whether it is sold as a stand-alone service or in conjunction with Iridium voice services, a subscriber may receive paging messages virtually anywhere on earth, from remote areas like the ocean or poles to populated metropolitan areas.
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Since Iridium will not sell prepaid cards or even its subscription call service directly, it is hard to obtain the exact price of making a call. There are numerous distributors that will activate Iridium phones and sell pre-paid vouchers and SIM cards. Regardless of the price, each pre-paid card or monthly plan comes with a number of minutes. These minutes are the "basic rate" to landlines. For a 500 minute annual plan the cost of the "basic rates" fluctuates around US$1.50/min depending on a distributor. There are ... regional plans that offer slightly cheaper rates than the normal, but these minutes can only be used in a specified geographic location (such as Africa, North America, Canada and Alaska).
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Shortly after the end of the second half of the year, Iridium announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (USFS) has fitted 200 primarily contract aircraft with Iridium equipment. The aircraft are part of the interagency Automated Flight-Following (AFF) program. They are mainly helicopters, and light and transport fixed-wing air tankers, used for wildland fire fighting and other natural resource agency missions.
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The ongoing perception of Iridium's business proposition was that the company's fortunes were largely tied to government contracts, and the USG as anchor tenant has not only ensured survival but has in fact made Iridium financially buoyant. For its part, Iridium has broadened its target market to include businesses around the globe for the provision of communications services where none exist, as well as improve preparedness and response for disaster scenarios.
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The clock is down to the final ticks for the doomed Iridium satellite phone constellation. As of August 24, Iridium users could no longer place or receive calls to non- Iridium phones in the Americas. Iridium phones retained some ability to send and receive calls from other Iridium phones. Motorola has advised users that any remaining Iridium services could be ended at any time without further notice. Motorola has started proceedings to deorbit the constellation. In the past six months several attempts have been made to resurrect the bankrupt service: Craig McCaw in February and Castle Harlin in June.
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