Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Tuesday 27 January 2009, 12:56 PM
Failed on Earth? Try orbit
The answer? WiMAX, IP and lots of satellites in a SpLAN – Space Local Area Network. Heavens only knows what they'd call a WAN - it's a bit odd thinking of outer space as 'local', but if astronomers can call an area of the cosmos 20 million light years across our "Local Group" I suppose it's just a matter of relativity.
The L in LAN comes from the architecture, not the size, of course; the WAN equivalent will be Vint Cerf's Interplanetary Internet. All the SpLAN orbiting nodes are envisioned as simple, lightweight, standard hardware with minimal new infrastructure required for new missions, the ability to route past damage in that time-honoured IP fashion, and lots of useful interoperability with existing systems.
All makes sense to me – but the SpLAN will be orbiting a planet full of people who are very good at hacking IP-based systems. It is notoriously hard to protect satellites against radio-borne sneaky meanness: an early generation of US military communications satellites were soon compromised and are still in use by South American businessmen to talk back to Spain.
Rather enjoyably, the US military has its own group of space hackers called Space CHOP (Countermeasures Hands On Program), a small collection of military (and sometimes civilian) people whose job is to identify – and sometimes even cause – havoc in space. Their rules of engagement are that they can't know too much more than is in the public domain, and that they can only use hardware and software that you or I could feasibly lay our hands on. How do you get that job, I wonder?
It's rather touching that the US government ends up looking after so much technology that can't really breathe unaided. GPS, although a great success, has no real commercial model, as the Europeans have found when trying to pretend that Galileo could make money. Iridium, that splendid folly of a public satellite phone system, has only survived because the US State Department picked it up for a song and made it the backbone of their mid-level global voice communications network. And now WiMAX, in the middle of a teeth-rattling set of valuation write-downs by its sponsors, is being promoted as the right idea for Buzz Lightyear's Youtube fix.
As we head towards July's 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, it's good to know that, in the words of Sun Ra, that space is the place.
PreviousComments on this post
I wanted to correct important factual errors in your article. Specifically, the inaccuracies stated in this sentence: “Iridium, that splendid folly of a public satellite phone system, has only survived because the US State Department picked it up for a song and made it the backbone of their mid-level global voice communications network.”
For the record and for the benefit of the readers of ZDNET: the U.S. government has never – and does not now – own Iridium. The facts are:
- The U.S. Department of Defense is the longest continuous user of the Iridium network – as a customer. Contracts with the DoD were important in keeping the network operational during Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, but no branch of the government has ever been an owner of or investor in Iridium. Today, the U.S. Department of Defense constitutes roughly 20% of Iridium’s revenues.
- Iridium was purchased out of bankruptcy by a group of private investors in late 2000 (not by the “U.S. State Department” as you incorrectly stated). The group of investors was led by former Pan Am President and Chief Operating Officer Dan Colussy who continues to be chairman of Iridium Holdings LLC.
Iridium’s technologically unequaled satellite constellation today provides the only truly global low-latency commercial voice and data mobile satellite service in the world. We provide Iridium’s valuable voice and data services to vertical markets such as maritime fleets, aviation fleets, the oil and gas industry, and defense and emergency response personnel. Private enterprise accounts, and sales and service associated with Iridium’s handsets, account for roughly 80% of the company’s revenues. All of this information has been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as the result of a going-public transaction with Greenhill Acquisition Corp. (AMEX:GHQ), announced September 23, 2008.
Through the first nine months of 2008, Iridium reported revenue of US$244.2 million with net income of US$52.3 million. In sum, much has changed in 10 years. While the first Iridium may have been a “splendid folly,” the splendor of the technology was never in question, and the new Iridium is a vibrant company with a solid business plan and a clearly delineated path forward. This includes a new US$2.7 billion satellite constellation, Iridium NEXT, which will begin launching in 2014. And that will be, well, simply splendid.
Elizabeth Mailander
Vice President, Corporate Communications
Iridium Satellite LLC
Thanks for that! Delighted to be put right – although I should point out that at the time, the DoD was fingered as an investor. This is from 2001::
"This capability ensued from the Defense Department’s $72 million investment in Iridium Satellite LLC, which operates a constellation of 66 communications satellites. That constellation was about to be rendered inoperative, after Iridium filed for bankruptcy in 1999. But a number of investors, including the Defense Department, bought the satellites at a bargain price, and Iridium was resurrected. The company re-launched its satellite-phone services earlier this year.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Pentagon is entitled to 20,000 handsets and gets a low-cost calling plan. U.S. government users get free unlimited air time between Iridium handsets and pay $40 per month for up to 500 minutes of air time when they are connected to terrestrial commercial phone lines."
Perhaps the exact nature of 'investment' can be debated here – I don't know if the DoD got an equity stake in the company.
Anyway, that was then and this is now. It's great to hear about Iridium NEXT, as it should finally get you away from that absolutely teeth-grindingly frustrating low data rate (well, I always found it teeth-grndingly frustrating). I've always seen the original Iridium as being something like Concorde – a superb technical feat in the service of an enthralling vision, that was overtaken by developments and ended up answering the wrong question. (And, like Concorde, Victorian railways and the UK's cable TV system, only capable of making commercial sense once the initial investment is written off).
Will the new satellites continue to furnish the world with Iridium flares? I've long been a fan of that cosmic adornment
