Iridium – Motorola Inc’s global satellite telephony venture has decided that if you can’t beat them, join them, and has announced that it hopes to work with terrestrial cellular operators and rival Inmarsat when its service is launched in 1997 (CI No 1,841). The unprecedented bout of corporate chumminess looks like an attempt to placate possible rivals, while increasing its chances of winning necessary radio frequencies for its service at the World Administrative Radio Conference – WARC – to be held next month. Unfortunately, in its haste, it announced the plans before it had worked out the details, or signed up any of the companies with which it wants to do business. Under the new plans, agreements would be signed with cellular operators around the globe so that the same mobile handset could be used both to offer global telephony via Iridium, and local telephony using the existing terrestrial cellular service provider.
Modified GSM
As many operators as possible would be signed up in each country, and Iridium would not attempt to give any service provider an unfair advantage by refusing to do a deal with its rival. In trying to sell the plan, the company has also said that it has the advantage of putting control back in the hands of the country’s regulatory body, since access could be controlled via the local terrestrial cellular carrier. The design of the cellular hand sets has been simplified from what was previously proposed, and is now a stripped-down version of the TDMA standard used by Groupe Speciale Mobile. The modifications are because some of the more complex protocols are not needed since, for example, there is no requirement for a highly complex handoff between cells – each satellite has the capacity to operate 37 cells, each of which is approximately 360 nautical miles in diameter, so that hand-offs of any description will be infrequent. That Iridium has opted for a modified Groupe Speciale Mobile – GSM – may in itself prove an advantage for European users, since some of the circuitry can be doubled-up for use both in GSM and Iridium modes, which could lead to smaller and cheaper European handsets than those in use elsewhere. What still remains unclear is whether users will have to be allocated two telephone numbers for the dual service handsets. According to a spokeswoman, the company ideally wants just one number and is trying to work out how this could be done, but doesn’t know if it would be possible. She also pointed out that the original idea of Iridium was to give users just one number on which they were universally available, and that allocating two numbers per handset slightly defeated this object. The problem the company is facing is that to give customers just one number would mean linking Iridium with many potentially incompatible systems of numbering, including differing numbers of digits and systems of area coding, and as yet the feasibility of this is just not known. Mercifully for Iridium, however, the process of making a call is simpler, and the company has designed a prototype handset capable of it. When a user makes a call with the dual-mode handset, it decides between the two services by first checking for the local cellular signal, and if it is unable to find one, then it switches to Iridium mode. The intention is for other cellular manufacturers to develop dual-mode handsets in addition to parent company Motorola.
By Matthew Woollacott
Iridium anticipates that its service will be marketed through existing cellular suppliers’ networks of distributors and dealers – with obvious advantages for it, since it will not have to establish its own global dealer network. In an even more conciliatory mood, it is going to offer capacity on its network of 77 low-orbit satellites to rival Inmarsat for its maritime and aeronautical customers. This, Iridium claims, will have great advantages for Inmarsat, since it can develop its market without additional capital expenditure. It is not yet known how Inmarsat feels about the offer. The plans for the satellite launches have also been changed. Wher
eas before, a dedicated space-craft was to be used, the satellites will now be launched a few at a time by commercial services such as Arian to minimise risk. Iridium has already signed agreements of understanding to participate in development and deployment with six partners, British Aerospace, Deutsche Aerospace, General Electric Co Inc, Lockheed Corp, Matra Marconi Espace SA and Raytheon Co. Iridium’s stated reasons for wanting to work with rival operators still seem cloudy. In the case of the terrestrial cellular operators, the new plans will be sure to dent Iridium’s profits – it will lose out on revenue from any calls made from the user’s home country, or in the case of GSM any calls made throughout the entire pan-European network. By cutting Inmarsat’s capital outlay costs in such a large way, Iridium is also effectively giving a large boost to its head-on competitor. This last point seems even more surprising considering that the new plans have added $1,100m to the cost of the project revised figures place the cost at $3,200m. One reason for such generosity may be to strengthen Iridium’s hand when it sits down at the World Administrative Radio Conference in February to argue that the 1GHz to 3GHz band should be allocated to operators of mobile communications services such as itself.
Worldwide monopoly
Although the backing of the US government has been gained, the proposal is not on as firm ground as it might be, since Iridium is currently the only operator that would make use of the frequency band. This would effectively mean that one private company had been given a worldwide monopoly on one part of the radio spectrum – a strong argument against allocating it that way. By signing deals with other service providers, Iridium gains the two-fold advantage of quelling opposition – cellular operators and the Inmarsat consortium have been among the most vocal in criticising Iridium – and blurring the impression of it as a single company pushing a money-making project. Indeed, the company has been playing up some of its service’s more philanthropic applications, including the publication of a document showing its undoubted benefits for disaster communications in remote areas. Although Iridium denies that it is making the new moves because of the frequency allocation question, it said that broadening the base of companies involved with the project was desirable, and that the underlying point is correct. Motorola believed that it could not be a one-company venture… it did not have the political breadth. It also conceded, however, that even with any new deals, Iridium is still the only company expected to make use of that part of the frequency band, and that in that sense it is a private initiative.
