Comment Re:But Motorola did it. (Score 3, Interesting) 33
But Motorola did it. (Ducks.) (Ducks 65 more times.)
But the history of Iridium tells a tale that Google appears to have listened to.
It's 66 satellites, not 77 (the actual atomic number of Iridium, the purported reason for the name) because 66 satellites are cheaper to launch and maintain than 77. And still, the company went bankrupt because they couldn't get customers willing to subscribe to the service. And the successor company depends on the US DoD as a major customer -- 23% of their 2012 revenue. That's quite a lifeline -- not one I envision Google's corporate culture rushing out to embrace.
The technical challenges aren't hard, notwithstanding the validity of the "it's rocket science" jokes. The financial and market challenges are the real ones. It's not the same as sticking a website out there and labeling it "Google Foobar (beta)". It makes money from Day One or it gets the hose again.