Dup, third time over, more comments here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1856327

It's really hard to do lean satellite development. There's a set of constraints that prevent this type of problem from being developed and deployed iteratively.

Except for identifying the fact that the opportunity has been missed and closing shop earlier, I can't really think of what I would have done differently.

What do you suggest? How would you lean the process?

It's a tough question, but I think the key is "customer development." Lock in users and use cases with contracts before launching the satellites, and map out what could be emerging threats. With the mobility space, it was already rapidly, rapidly changing, and I think their customers were more this imaginary, high-flying James Bond-style business executive.

How many people really need a phone that covers them in "middle of the Arctic Ocean to the jungles of Africa to the remote mountain peaks of the Himalayas"? The answer is: "Not a sustainable market."

I don't know if the numbers pencilled out, but Teledesic, another company with similar ambitions, but, I think, using satellites in lower orbit, was trying to get some long term customers from countries with a lot of wide open spaces, where the cost of providing wired infrastructure, or even wireless infrastructure strung together with point to point microwave connections, was prohibitive.

Australia was one of their targets, but I think also some of the telcos in the western US, which had obligations to provide service, even in sparsely populated areas.

but yeah. big Fail

Wow. I covered the telephony industry for a while, and had no idea that Iridium's ambitions had once been this great. When I spoke with them a year or two ago, they were selling themselves as a last-ditch backup, trying to penetrate the enterprise market by saying, "Hey, we're expensive but you don't have to use us until you need us!"

Satellite rates are incredibly high relatively speaking, and it's just amazing to see how this company, which comes off as an 80s relic, actually came to be.