Iridium works extremely well for what it was designed for – truly global, low latency communications without requiring a directional antenna. Unfortunately, that also means very low data rates.
It only gained packed-switched data with the second generation satellite network, but data rates are still very low (think hundreds of kbps, and I believe even that needs high-gain antennas).
It only gained packed-switched data with the second generation satellite network, but data rates are still very low (think hundreds of kbps, and I believe even that needs high-gain antennas).