Satcom and Starlink: Reviving a faltered dream, with a bigger constellation

In November 1998, Iridium switched on a constellation of 66 satellites to power phones that worked anywhere on Earth.

Yes, 1998, for the dream of a global, earth-wide communication network beaming from outer space is neither a modern Silicon Valley invention, nor did it begin with Starlink. The late 90s and early 2000s saw satellite communication (or Satcom) technology companies such as Iridium, Inmarsat, Globalstar, and Teledesic work on a vision that was fundamentally sound, but , like it often happens in technology, premature.

Back then, the companies were using a mix of geostationary (GEO) , medium Earth orbit (MEO), and low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. Inmarsat for instance used GEO satellites, which had wider coverage at the trade-off for latency (time taken between sending a request and getting a response). LEOs promised faster connectivity with a vision toward internet from the sky, but needed more satellites in the constellation.

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