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These systems include Iridium,
Odyssey, Globalstar, Teledesic, ICO, Thuyra, ACes, Agrani, and
EAST.
According to a report from Frost & Sullivan "World
Mobile Satellite Telephony Service and Terminal Equipment,''
the world global mobile personal communication service (GMPCS)
service market will reach $47.2 billion by 2006.
The Iridium
satellite phone network was declared bankrupt,
but a last-minute intervention by the US Military in November 2000 means that US$2m per year will be paid to the new owners for unlimited call time.
It has now been relaunched and is offering full commercial
services.
Globalstar succesfully
launched many of it's satellites during 1999
and went live in October 1999. It is commercial as of 4/2000.It
however also decelared bankruptcy in November 2001.
Inmarsat has operated
a portable phone service since the early 1990's. It's smallest is
the briefcase sized Inmarsat-M(ini) phone system.
The related ICO
system filed for bankruptcy protection in August 1999.
It was bailed out in
November 1999 by a $1.2 billion reprieve from investors led by
industry veteran Craig McCaw
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The Thuraya
system is now live, offering services to the Middle East, parts of
Asia and North Africa. |
Agrani, AceS (Asian regional systems built by Lockheed Martin), and EAST (a
regional system that will focus on Africa and the Middle East) aim
to provide interoperability between mobile satellite and cellular
networks. As a result, any GSM subscriber can continue to use his
existing GSM SIM cards with the new dual-mode (GSM/satellite)
handsets.
AceS went live in April 2000 using the Ericsson
R190 dual-mode handset.
Almost all these
satellite services offer a combination of all-digital transparent
voice, data, fax and paging services to and from hand-held
telephone devices, some no larger than current GSM cellular
handsets.
The systems will share an air interface standard named GMSS
(Geostationary Mobile Satellite Standard) that is similar to GSM.
This means that satphone customers will be able to use mobile
phones that are compatible with satellite systems in any country
where GMSS is offered, in effect creating roaming capabilities
between the three systems' regional footprints.
Click on a
service below for more details on each:
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