The final countdown: Iridium system begins to come together

Imagine an orchestra so massive that the conductor must stand far enough back to have a line-of-sight view of all the musicians. The conductor is the unifying element for everyone and, by monitoring and directing, ensures that the musicians all play in harmony.

That's perhaps the best way to envision the role of a low earth orbit satellite system such as Iridium-a kind of global network conductor that acts as the unifying element for various types of networks all over the world.

When completed, Iridium will actually comprise 66 conductors that are tied to paging, cellular and landline networks and will allow the operators of those networks to extend the mobility of their customers to virtually anywhere (see figure). The idea behind Iridium is not to replace or compete with those networks, but to fill in the continental holes between them.

"There are still vast areas where voice communications isn't," said Jim Walz, president of Iridium North America. "Nobody has ever tried to tie the world together through global satellites."

The Iridium concept is now more than 10 years old and has garnered billions of dollars in backing from the likes of Motorola, DDI, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Sprint, Korea Mobile Telecom, DDI and dozens of other investors all over the world.

The consortium has now launched 33 of its 66 satellites and plans to have its entire constellation in place by the end of the year as it prepares for commercial launch on Sept. 23, 1998.

"Our plans are to have our constellation up in June and start bringing users on in a beta category," Walz said. "We're pleased that we're going to have some time to get them up there and do some bake and shake."

Iridium's North American gateway will serve as the beta gateway, and all of the equipment for it is now installed, according to Andy Croughan, director of gateway operations for Iridium North America. The company has completed the hub between the satellites and the gateway, and it has begun testing connections to the public networks, he said.

That progress is becoming more crucial as competition heats up in the satellite market. Iridium's direct competition will come from the likes of Globalstar, Inmarsat and Constellation Communications. Geostationary services are already available, and broadband systems like Teledesic are also ramping up.

Iridium, however, plans not only to be first but also to establish itself as truly mobile and global with its ability to roam, interconnect all types of systems and even communicate across different cellular standards.

Iridium will partner with terrestrial wireless carriers around the world and allow those operators to equip their customers with an Iridium handset if they are heavy international travelers. Iridium users will have a subscriber identification module similar to the ones being used for international cellular and PCS roaming, allowing users to keep their existing numbers and still be globally connected. "You're known by the numbers you give out," Walz explained.

Walz views Iridium as a natural extension to what the cellular industry has accomplished: Cellular started in cities and spread,then formed roaming agreements to interconnect a country. Now Iridium will tie it all together, he said.

"The next real evolution of where mobile wireless is going is Iridium," Walz said.