Reacting to the news that Iridium Inc now had all the financing it needs in place, I’m in awe of Motorola’s power, says Herschel Shosteck, a consultant in Silver Spring, Maryland specialising in wireless communications, who has been a longtime skeptic about Iridium Inc: We gave about 0.6% probability of this happening – this demonstrates the enormous power of Motorola in the world; Iridium’s biggest investment comes from Japan, where DDI Corp, Japan’s second-largest telephone company, is the dominant partner in a consortium of 17 Japanese companies that invested about $235m, with others including Sony Corp, Mitsubishi Corp and Mitsui & Co; in Germany, Motorola Inc signed up Veba AG, which invested $140m; it South America, it has signed consortium led by Brazilian construction company Inepar Ltda; Korean Mobile Telecommunications Ltd will put up $70m; in the US, Sprint Corp will put up $70m, and Raytheon Co and Lockheed Corp, both building hardware, are investing about $35m each; Motorola will be paid by Iridium to build the system, and its primary goal is to be a supplier of equipment for Iridium.
