Iridium shuts phone service, to flame out satellites

By beaming instructions to on-board devices, engineers eventually will tip the satellites, one by one, on a path that will send them down in flames. The target will be the ocean — a spectacle that may be visible from Earth.

An attorney for telecommunications equipment maker Motorola Corp, which built and operated the satellites, told the court it would begin the de-orbiting process in about a week.

Clearing out the satellites is necessary because keeping them aloft costs large sums of money. Without proper attention, they could interfere with other spacecraft and explode if hit, adding to the human-made debris already cluttering the heavens.

Bringng the satellites back must be coordinated with several US Government agencies. Motorola said it would take up to two years to burn up the last of the satellites in the atmosphere.

In a communication to Indian customers, users have been warned that they would have to look for alternative communications channels, but many a private user had no option since the only other service available in India, Inmarsat, requires governmental clearance and a separate handset. Indian army, intelligence agencies and some state governments are few of Iridium’s customers.

Services to most parts of the world, including India, were shut down at 23:59 eastern time of March 17 (morning today). “If the iridium service ceases to be available worldwide after 11:59 PM eastern time on Mar 17, it will not be possible for Iridium India to provide the services under the provisional license of the DoT,” says a Iridium communication to Indian customers.

Iridium’s 55,000-odd users around the world have been put to great hardship and loss as the handset that cost more than $ 3000 is now nothing more than a toy as it is not compatible with any other satellite phone service. The company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in August after badly miscalculating the fast-changing market for portable phones that could be used worldwide.

Iridium’s brick-sized handsets – which did not work well inside buildings and cars – cost as much as $ 3,000 each when the satellite network went into operation on November 1, 1998. Subsequent price drops slashed their price in half, but by then the market was spinning away.

Iridium on Friday gave up its hunt for a buyer to rescue it from bankruptcy proceedings. “No bid was received which was a qualified bid,” William Perlstein, an attorney representing the debt-plagued firm, told the US Bankruptcy court in Manhattan.

Judge Arthur Gonzalez cleared Iridium to spend $8.3 million to start winding up its business while selling remaining Earth-bound assets, including ground stations. Iridium had been operating under court protection from its creditors since last August, less than a year after its network became operational on Nov 1, 1998.

WIRELESS NETWORKS DOOMED IRIDIUM: The increasing global reach of land-based wireless phone carriers has allowed business travellers, a prime Iridium market, to stay connected in all but some of the world’s most remote spots.

“It’s not going to be too long before you can take a cellular phone anywhere in the world and have it work simply by throwing a switch,” says a telecom analyst. “Thus, Iridium was history,” he adds.