Matt Desch, CEO, Iridium Satellite

Via Satellite: What will Next offer beyond just allowing you to continue your operations?

Desch: Our constellation is unique. We’re the only ones with six satellites in polar orbit and 11 more backups behind them looking over any part of the planet at any time. The Iridium constellation is constantly overhead and can connect to each other wherever it needs to go to a private military or commercial gateway. It’s a backbone in space. Next will add to that backbone. That’s the real value, and as we launch these new systems, that will be very valuable and powerful as we talk to our technical partners.
We’ve moved now from just communications to navigation, sensors and even something like imaging. We probably can’t do high-resolution imagery because of the complexity and cost considerations but low-resolution imagery could provide a lot of value in constantly remapping the planet.

Via Satellite: Will is the status of your government business and your relationship with the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)?

Desch: Government contracts have gone from what once was 99 percent of our business to about 25 percent. Yet our business now extends to over 40 agencies, and we’ll continue to see our services applied in new ways.
There are as many different applications as there are customers. One you may have heard about is blue force tracking — keeping track of all the positions of all your people. Netted Iridium works like the Nextel ads, with a push-to-talk capability that allows hundreds of people’s phones to hear what you’re saying. Before, they used line-of-sight systems that can’t cut through to opposite sides of a mountain. We can provide the net overhead.
Those kinds of new systems have added growth potential that we expect to see continue, not just among U.S. agencies but other governments, too: the European Union, United Kingdom, police forces in Australia and New Zealand, fire departments, and other emergency response organizations. While the gross number of contracts will increase it will grow less fast than in the commercial market, probably around 20 percent in next year or two.

Via Satellite: Will the U.S. government or any international government customers providing any financing for the development of Next?

Desch: There are a number of government customers we’re working with, and they’re providing unique requirements and payloads to ride on top of our system.
We’re not launching the Next system for six years or so, but we’re going to design space on the satellite that doesn’t need to be filled in this year but potentially could be put on board when we launch in 2012, and as we launch additional spacecraft and as the requirements change, we can launch additional payloads. That has a lot of value for people whose systems and needs change.

Via Satellite: Iridium reported a 23.2 percent increase in subscribers in 2006. Where do you expect those numbers to go from here?

Desch: As you get larger, you can’t keep the same growth rate, but we expect to see it in the teens at least. Especially healthy is the business for short-burst data. I think it grew over 100 percent, and we can see that again this year. At those rates, that will become significant over the next few years.

Via Satellite: What will Next offer beyond just allowing you to continue your operations?

Via Satellite: Will is the status of your government business and your relationship with the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)?

Via Satellite: Will the U.S. government or any international government customers providing any financing for the development of Next?

Via Satellite: Iridium reported a 23.2 percent increase in subscribers in 2006. Where do you expect those numbers to go from here?

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