Iridium Communications - Present Status

Present Status

Iridium Satellite LLC merged with a special purpose acquisition company (GHQ) created by the investment bank Greenhill & Co. (NYSE: GHL) in September, 2009 to create Iridium Communications, Inc. The public company trades on NASDAQ under the symbol "IRDM". The company has approximately 523,000 subscribers as of the end of December, 2011 (compared to 427,000 in December, 2010). Revenue for the full year 2011 was US $384.3 million with Operational EBITDA of US $190.4 million.

The system is being used extensively by the U.S. Department of Defense through the DoD gateway in Hawaii. The DoD made up 23% of Iridium's revenues in 2010. An investigation was begun into the DoD contract after a protest by Globalstar, to the U.S. General Accounting Office that no tender was provided. A hold against the contract was lifted at the request of the Department of Defense (citing national security reasons). This allows the continued use of the network during the investigation.

The commercial gateway in Tempe, Arizona, provides voice, data, and paging services for commercial customers on a global basis. Typical customers include maritime, aviation, government, the petroleum industry, scientists, and frequent world travelers.

Iridium satellites are now an essential component of communications with remote science camps, especially the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. As of December 2006, an array of twelve Iridium modems was put online, providing continuous data services to the station for the first time. Total bandwidth is 28.8 kbit/s.