Why you think the Iridium mobile telephone system failed?

Question

Why you think the Iridium mobile telephone system failed?

Answer 1

Iridium was a phone system without a market. It is a pretty cool concept: the use of low earth orbit satellites carrying phone traffic and providing virtual worldwide coverage around the world. Outside of the usual coverage issues, it was expensive to make a call. Combined with a very low subscription rate, it would be impossible to quickly recover the investment made into the system. Eventually, worldwide roaming with your terrestrial cellular phone rendered Iridium a niche market.