Cellular Wireless Modem

Seven Questions for Iridium CEO Matthew Desch -- Yes, That Iridium

More often than not, the Iridium satellite phone system is remembered as one of the great telecom flameouts of the 1990s. It almost became a literal one: At one point following a 1999 bankruptcy, the 70 or more satellites that make up the system were scheduled to de-orbit and burn up in the atmosphere, in what would have been a fiery denouement of Iridium’s epic bankruptcy case.

That didn’t happen. In 2001, at what was very nearly the last minute, a group of private investors nabbed the assets of the old Motorola-backed concern for fractions of a penny on the dollar, and kept the satellite phone service running. The timing was right. The 9/11 terrorist attacks, which led to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, ensured that the U.S. Department of Defense would remain the system’s biggest customer, and it still is today. And though no one will tell me with any certainty, it’s even possible that Seal Team Six used an Iridium-based communication system when they slipped into Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden . Just sayin’.

The big mistake of the original Iridium was that it aimed to be “the phone” that globe-hopping executives would carry with them everywhere. In what could only be described as a monumentally bad judgement call on the the state of the wireless market, common cellphones started working pretty much anywhere a mainstream user might happen to be, obviating the need for a single wireless phone that worked anywhere in the world.

Take out the word “mainstream,” and the business case for Iridium was and is strong. It finished its March quarter with 447,000 subscribers around the world — a 25 percent increase over the previous year — of which more than 315,000 are voice customers. They’re people whose jobs take them to the remotest corners of the globe — oil platforms at sea, drilling rigs in the desert, mines in mountainous terrain, you get the idea — and for whom being without a working phone is simply not an option. As big as the conventional wireless phone networks are, they still cover less than 10 percent of the globe. Government voice users — about 37,000 at last count — are the heaviest users, averaging about $140 in revenue each month, while commercial voice users — 279,000 at last count — average about $47 a month.

But the fastest-growing bit of Iridium’s business is in data. If you have a piece of equipment or an asset whose status or movement you have to track, even in a remote desert, across the ocean or at the South Pole, the chances are pretty good you can put an Iridium modem on it and follow its status in short regular bursts of data. This “machine to machine” or M2M business is small but growing fast. As of the last quarter, the business had 122,000 customers — nearly double the number from the year-ago quarter — and brought in $6.4 million, accounting for about 10 percent of sales.

The High Speed Satellite Internet and High Speed Wireless Internet ...

Both wireless Internet and satellite Internet have made it possible for Internet users to get online from almost any location and almost any device without being connected to a phone line.

Get more information on high speed Internet access.

Dial-up Internet used to be the only Internet option available to people living in rural regions. Not anymore. Now, thanks to satellite Internet and wireless Internet connections that run at much higher speeds than dial-up, people in rural areas can have high speed wireless Internet solutions that allow them to use their smartphones and tablets to their full benefit.

Wireless high speed Internet providers come in a few different shapes: cellular networks, hotspots, and radio-based wireless Internet. Due to the fact that the Internet signal is not brought in through underground cables, some people even consider satellite Internet to be wireless.

Cellular Wireless Internet There a couple ways to connect to the cellular wireless Internet from a computer: 1) Insert a wireless air card into the computer’s USB port, or 2) connect via a cell phone tether - or connecting your computer to your cell phone to use it as a sort of “wireless modem” (NOTE: Some cellular service providers have rules against tethering. Be sure to check with your carrier). Wireless cellular Internet can be extremely convenient, because it connects to the web from anywhere (as long as there is no interference between the device and the closest cell tower). The majority of cell phone service providers offer wireless air cards so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding one.

Radio-Based Wireless Internet Wireless Internet access through these HotSpots is sometimes free and other times it comes with a cost depending on whether or not the business fronts the cost. The Internet access could be acquired from any number of wireless high speed Internet providers including satellite Internet, DSL, or cable.

Find out how to get high speed satellite Internet.

High Speed Satellite Internet If you want to receive high speed satellite Internet wirelessly, you just need a two way satellite and a modem. Once the satellite Internet provider installs that technology and establishes the high speed satellite Internet connection, the consumer can easily create a wireless network using a router. This is the same type of Wi-Fi/wireless network that could be created with DSL or cable high speed Internet.

Home networks

Wireless cellular

Local area networks, LAN

New Perspectives on Computer Concepts 2011

Special edition using the Internet and Web