FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Iridium GO....thoughts?
View Single Post
Old Apr 23, 2014, 11:25 pm
  #17  
Error 601
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Programs: No single airline or hotel chain is of much use to me anymore.
Posts: 3,275
Originally Posted by ScottC
Completely not true. So many services rely on the satellites that are used here that it is so far from "inevitable" that they will go away. The only determining factor that will make a network "go away" is financial (see TerreStar, a network that never made any financial sense). There is no room for more than 2 or maybe 3 networks.

The Inmarsat satellites used for the iSatPhone are amazingly important to aviation, maritime and defense that they are around for good. The Iridium network powers 1000's of private jet phone services, defense and more. They ain't going anywhere. Both networks are profitable, and for someone to come along and take those frequencies away for LTE makes no sense at all, there are plenty of other spots spectrum can be found for this.
I didn't say "go away" I said much of the spectrum will be refarmed for terrestrial purposes and the existing platforms will be shaken up in that.

This is not abstract thinking, GlobalStar has proposed terrestrial LTE on both their 1.6GHz and 2.4GHz spectrum and is currently before the FCC advocating for expanding Wi-Fi into their 2.4GHz spectrum.

To say that this isn't going to happen is like saying that 850MHz AMPS wouldn't be refarmed. There is still 850MHz cellular service but it is being employed in a much more profitable manner. Dish has already tried to buy spectrum from Inmarsat. Who themselves contemplated terrestrial use of their European spectrum for inflight internet.
Error 601 is offline