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Rocketlab acquires Iridium

investors.rocketlabcorp.com

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Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#251

Post by silisili »

panick21_ wrote: post #169
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #151

As an ex-Motorolan (1998-2008), I sometimes look at what remains of the big mighty company and there is not much. Here in Europe it is even less, at least in the US you see the umpires (or somebody else, not sure as I fo not know baseball) with their half-headsets with the Motorola logo. It is a shame, I liked this company very much.

Just got a Motorola phone and I love it. 3.5mm audio jack and cheap.

Not a knock against your phone, but different company. Lenovo now owns and makes the cell phone line.

Motorola Solutions, the successor of the original Motorola, does the headsets/radios and such.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#252

Post by JumpCrisscross »

vasco wrote: post #244
ericmay wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok but that's not what I asked... You're just saying "we should have some system that benefits everyone". Ok sure that sounds nice, but you compared it to a specific framework with an off-hand "we've solved this so long ago" type of comment. Surely if it's so simple and straightforward and the Dutch "already figured it out" you'd have at least some idea of a proposal or implementation details. How will the toll be co…

Those parts aren't the hard ones? You collect waterworks taxes the same way regular taxes are collected in NL. You get a letter with an amount to pay and you pay it. The waterworks is the entity that sends you the letter and manages the application of those taxes. The system that comment described is still in place today and operates in parallel to "regular" government.

> Those parts aren't the hard ones?

For an international resource it absolutely is. Everyone would lobby their government to ditch to make a sprint. (Well, China and America and possibly rising powers like India or the UAE would.)

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#253

Post by JumpCrisscross »

phildenhoff wrote: post #9

Rocket lab used to be a New Zealand source of pride, having started there. From the press release, now it’s American. What happened?

> What happened?

ITAR. (From what I remember, Beck really tried to avoid it. But there isn’t a competitive solution for a New Zealand-based aerospace company.)

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#254

Post by MikeNotThePope »

ryandvm wrote: post #49

I dunno. I would be surprised if a 30 year old telecommunications network is going to be technically competitive with a SpaceX's LEO network that is still launching satellites as we speak. How much market is there for people that just want low speed connectivity from the middle of nowhere?

Rocket Lab wants the radio spectrum, which gives them a global license in every country to talk directly to cell phones.

Why the Satellite Race is No Longer About Satellites - https://youtube.com/shorts/hRxv4RggxLE

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#255

Post by lxgr »

labcomputer wrote: post #206
lxgr wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of it. You can't really get around physics. Iridium has historically targeted low-power, omnidirectional terminals (antennas can be larger at lower frequencies without requiring steering than at higher frequencies). They recently had some forays into steered, high-bandwidth antennas with their Certus line and their second-generation satellites that now allow native packet switching (the first gen was circuit-swit…

> (antennas can be larger at lower frequencies without requiring steering than at higher frequencies). No. 1. Iridium uses frequencies fairly close to GPS (~1.6GHz). 2. Iridium uses cylindrically-polarized transmissions (like GPS), which enable compact omnidirectional helical antennas > They recently had some forays into steered, high-bandwidth antennas with their Certus line and their second-generation satellites th…

> 1. Iridium uses frequencies fairly close to GPS (~1.6GHz). 2. Iridium uses cylindrically-polarized transmissions (like GPS), which enable compact omnidirectional helical antennas

Which part of my argument is this an objection to?

Are you saying that using circular polarization, the same would be possible in the Ku or even Ka bands? Because that’s definitely not the case due to the different aperture/gain tradeoff vs. L-band, and that’s my point.

> This is AI slop?

Did I say anything incorrect there or do you just not like my writing?

> No, the point of using an electrically-steered beam antenna is that it improves SNR, so that you are not bandwidth limited.

Sure, but my point was: At low frequencies, you can steer to become more efficient per bit, but at high frequencies you almost have to, as you’re sending energy in suboptimal directions otherwise. And then if you’re already steering, why not use a less-scarce band?

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#256

Post by lxgr »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #217
amluto wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that the lack of ability to form nulls in the beam is as big or even a bigger limitation than the reduction in gain when going from a big array to a phone. The SNR in Shannon’s Law has a log in front of it, but spectrum reuse is more or less linear. If there are five visible satellites and I can null out four of them, then I can receive from and transmit to the fifth without substantial interference. (I’m n…

Dense areas get terrestrial towers as the do now. Non-dense areas fall back to satellite towers with no change in devices needed.

Definitely, and I think GP raises a valid point: Without beamforming, there’s no point in having more than one station covering the same area, whether terrestrial tower or satellite-based spot beam.

And while 4G and beyond use some mild device-side beamforming, it’s a whole different ballpark than parabolic antennas or phased arrays in terms of gain.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#257

Post by Scoundreller »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #178
written-beyond wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe I bought a few shares of IRDM with a few hundred bucks in my trading account. Primarily because it was a RKLB adjacent company with decent fundamentals whos stock price wasn't scraping the sky. I don't know how to feel about this acquisition though. Never thought IRDM would've been a bad investment.

The market can't be timed (by honest players), as I remember buying into Ubiquiti Networks at around $12/share thinking I might see a 8% bump after the old legal event subsided. Then just sort of forgot about that tax-sheltered holding for a few years. I also don't do the 3 month portfolio shuffle dance 95% of stock investment people try to ride. The heavy cost of putting stuff in space is still not solved, but broad…

I thought starlink would do something to grab the terrestrial market: put up a “satellite” on a tall building and everyone in the city could hammer down self-aiming CPEs as long as they had line-of-sight

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#258

Post by lxgr »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #216
lxgr wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iridium is launching 5G standards-based direct-to-device capabilities this year: https://www.iridium.com/services/iridium-ntn-direct

Only for companies that choose to make or support phones with Iridium connectivity included, as opposed to AST and Starlink targeting existing phones.

Kind of: Phones will probably need some Iridium-specific RF hardware (unless their existing baseband and amplifiers happen to cover the band it uses), but the baseband and signaling stack won’t be proprietary anymore if I understand it correctly.

Several mass-market phones already are IoT-NTN compatible, e.g. Google’s Pixel line.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#259

Post by wolvoleo »

inemesitaffia wrote: post #234
wolvoleo wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring problems until they become too big to pooh-pooh away is how we got into the climate crisis. And some countries are still pooh-poohing it away.

evidence based alarmism.

Oh now even facts are alarmism. Right.. :X
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