It's great tech. Same next generation Iridium network is used for offshore maritime, aviation, land mobile data, etc. Lots of places where a traditional two way VSAT is much too large. Its main market competition is the INMARSAT I-4 and I-5 series satellites and BGAN network.

The main problem with it is the very high dollars per megabyte cost. If you're a billionaire or a nation state with a $30 million Gulfstream jet and an Iridium terminal on it you probably don't care. But it can be cost prohibitive for any appreciable amount of data transfer from remote scientific systems.