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Technology Stocks : IRID - Iridium World Communications IPO Announced! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeff Vayda who wrote (1345)	2/17/1999 3:30:00 PM
From: Diogeron	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2693

From the GSTRF thread: Iridium pager hits growing-pains stage zdnet.com Mind the Gap By Jim Louderback February 15, 1999 9:00 AM ET I've got a pager from SkyTel that works almost everywhere in the United States. However, it does not work in the mountains of Vermont, where I like to vacation. So I was intrigued by Motorola's new Satellite Series 9501 Pager for its Iridium network. It's supposed to work anywhere in the world--even on a Vermont mountain. I spent a few days last week playing with the pager, and it works up there in Vermont and probably most everywhere else, too. But it's still too limited, and at $150 to $200 a month for the service--plus $500 for the pager--it is still too expensive for my needs. The pager itself is only slightly bigger than my SkyTel pager, also made by Motorola. It's a one-way device, which means you're not guaranteed to get a page, unlike with some of the newer narrowband PCS pagers that also let you send e-mail. But the pages are numbered sequentially. Therefore, if you miss a number, you can call the paging center to find the page you missed. That's OK in the United States, but it would be an expensive call from Botswana. Moreover, it's more likely you'll miss a page with the Iridium pager than with my nationwide SkyTel. Why? Because even though you get worldwide coverage, the service can't be active all over the world at a given time. Instead, Motorola has divided the world into regions, and you can only have three active regions at a time. The United States itself is divided into eight regions, preventing the entire country from being active at once. Most other countries are a single region, but if you are on the ocean, the Seven Seas have tons of regions. You have to call a special number to change regions, which severely limits the usefulness of the pager. Certainly it's not going to go over well with the single-handed sailing set. When traveling in an airplane, however, you can select a region that corresponds to popular air routes. For the price, you would think they'd at least offer continentwide roaming, but instead you have to remember to change your region when you change countries or even states within the United States. If you're like me, you barely remember to change your watch when you cross time zones, let alone your paging code. Unless you plan on being in a few remote places for a relatively long time, this pager is just too expensive--and too limited--for most people. IRIDIUM PHONE UPDATE: Guess I wasn't the only one having trouble with my Iridium phone (see column). Jim Fawcette, the president of Fawcette Publications, sent me an e-mail saying that he's been able to place only two successful calls in more than 100 attempts from Europe and the United States. Buildings and trees are problems, but he couldn't even get connected from the center of a mall parking lot. The good news is that, when connected, the clarity is great. But a 2 percent connect rate is hardly worth the money. Iridium's still good for something, though. You can watch the setting sun flare off the reflective mirror for a fun stellar experience. To find out when Iridium flares happen in your area, check out www.gsoc.dlr.de/satvis/. Jim Louderback is the editorial director of ZDTV and a contributing editor to PC Week. He can be contacted at jim_louderback@zd.com.