TRW Inc has finally gone public on its plan for a satellite-based global mobile phone service – but plans to finance the project through partnerships with telecommunications companies. The Cleveland, Ohio-based company has already signed up Montreal-long-distance carrier Teleglobe Inc as a partner, but between them the two are only going to invest 15% of the estimated $2,000m cost, meaning that other partners will have to stump up the other $1,700m. They plan to form a limited partnership, acting as general partners. Odyssey is based on a network of 12 satellites positioned at a height of around 6,000 miles. The companies say this will give global coverage, with subscribers always in sight of two satellites. Because of the small number of satellites, the companies claim to have drastically reduced the overall cost of the project – the Bill Gates and Craig McCaw proposal for Teledesic for example, is expected to cost $9,000m – as well as cutting the time to market: TRW says it expects the service to go live in 1998, although this date is based on a minimum coverage configuration, which would use six satellites. Because of its lower start-up costs, the companies say that they expect tariffs to be in the region of $1 per minute, significantly lower than those being touted by other services including Inmarsat-P and Iridium, which estimate something nearer $3 per minute. But question marks still hang over the project, most notably on which telecommunications technology will be used. It is also unclear exactly how the service is to be marketed – although it seems TRW and Teleglobe have North America sewn up between them. TRW – rather than Odyssey – has filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission and it said in a statement that TRW… will be the sole recipient of the licence when granted, implying that the service will be sold on a one-carrier-per-country basis. And it may not be truly global, only covering those areas where the pair attract partners, as they quote the system’s ability to focus service where demand is greatest and make the best use of system capacity as another advantage.
