Aviation Week & Space Technology Article on Teledesic...
Thought you might want to read a couple of "High Points"...
"Daunting technical, financial, and scheduling challenges remain. These include designing, lofting and integrating the planned "Internet in the sky"
"As envisioned, Teledesic will provide optical fiber-like, INTERACTIVE high-bandwidth communications services worldwide at "affordable" rates". Capacity is to be equivalent to 20,000 T-1 links. Once the system is in service coverage would be 95% of the Earth's surface and nearly 100% of the population" (!)
"Primarily aimed at "service partners", or large businesses that need to move massive amounts of data quickly, AS WELL as at local telephone systems, Teledesic plans to offer "bandwidth on demand".
"Teledesic said it welcomed Boeing's participation due to the aerospace manufacturer's expertise and experience in managing large, complex global alliances and projects"
And finally, "The parnership likely will outsource licensed production of standardized Teledesic terminals to various international suppliers. A basic version should serve up to T-1 Transmission rates, or 16kb/sec to 2mb/sec. The cost will be about the same as a personaly computer" Teledesic plans to evaluate, select and begin work with KEY suppliers this summer. To reduce user costs, message routing likely would be automatically diverted to comparable fiber optic land lines when available which would free up capacity."
Any of the above have a familiar "ring" to it?
Lets hope FTEL knocked their socks off with some of their "toys"..
Regards,
Bob Mustic |
