An invitation: IRIDIUM has provided for free service from IRIDIUM subscriber unit (ISU) to Iridium subscriber unit until March 31st. In a forum such as we have here, there must be other IRIDIUM subscribers; it is to you that this message is addressed.
If interested, please send me a private message, for the purpose of beginning active voice communication via the IRIDIUM system. I suspect there are others here who would like to avail themselves of free satellite time, and who would like to exchange information about this system. I believe IRIDIUM is approaching a period of frequent new developments, and a subscriber network sharing information during this period would be interesting, to say the least.
For non-subscribers who are interested in the IRIDIUM system's performance, perhaps there is a way to arrange a call. Let me know if you are interested.
To ask why I am doing this would be natural. The answer is that I am simply exasperated with the amount of opinion that is posted on all the message boards about IRIDIUM, and would like to offer those who are interested in facts the opportunity to experience them firsthand. I believe IRIDIUM represents a phenomenal technological achievement, and to dismiss it on the basis of cost is wrong. Globalstar has an attractive technological architecture, to be sure, but if we're to judge MSS systems on the basis of cost alone, we must give Globalstar bad grades for doubling the development cost of its system. Once Globalstar is operational, the subject of development cost may be rendered moot, but IRIDIUM's experience should engender some healthy examination of the prodigious task Globalstar has ahead of it, just in the marketing area; rather than a centralized marketing plan, Globalstar must depend not only on the creativity of its in-country service providers, but on their monetary resources as well. To coordinate such an effort will be a major achievement, and worthy of admiration when it succeeds.
In the meantime, to those who are interested...the opportunity to communicate via the only global hand-held satellite telephone system in existence. Once you talk to someone via satellites 420 miles overhead, travelling at 17,000 miles per hour, you will never again think of IRIDIUM (or Globalstar) in quite the same way.
I'll probably regret doing this, but I used to think the same thing about climbing in the Sierra. There's a certain charm to leaping, then looking... |
