> There are only so many war zone reporters and mountain climbers to go around, though.
The U.S. Department of Defense is Iridium's largest customer by far, and kept them alive with a large cash infusion at one point (if memory serves).
Also, fun fact: iridium modems provide the only continuous data link for the U.S. South Pole station. There are 12 modems ganged together, used for e-mail and weather info transfer. Bandwidth: 28.8kbps. (the station also has several high-bandwidth uplinks, but the coverage windows for those are limited, and they have to compete with NASA/ISS for bandwidth).
When I was just about to get out of the military, I was offered a job as a radio technician at that station - 60k a year. I turned to my buddy (who had gotten the same offer) and said, "Who in their right mind would take 28 bucks an hour to work in Antarctica?"
That might be quite apealing to some. 60k isn't that little if most of life's necessities (housing, food, clothing, etc.) are provided to you for free.
Plus no relatives to ever deal with again, til you retire.
I would've probably taken the offer, but as it stands, I probably lack the qualifications required.
The U.S. Department of Defense is Iridium's largest customer by far, and kept them alive with a large cash infusion at one point (if memory serves).
Also, fun fact: iridium modems provide the only continuous data link for the U.S. South Pole station. There are 12 modems ganged together, used for e-mail and weather info transfer. Bandwidth: 28.8kbps. (the station also has several high-bandwidth uplinks, but the coverage windows for those are limited, and they have to compete with NASA/ISS for bandwidth).