LOW-EARTH ORBIT SATELLITE PROJECTS
	ICO	Globalstar	Constel lation	Iridium	Teledesic	Ellipso
Service types	Voice, data,fax, paging, messaging, position	Voice, data, fax, paging, video	Voice, data, fax	Voice, data, fax, paging, video	Voice, data, fax, paging, broadband	Voice, data, fax, paging, video, messaging, position
Cost per minute	$1.00	$1.99	$0.90	$1.50 - $3.00	$0.04 sat cost only	$0.50
User terminal cost	"Several Hundred"	$1500	N/A	$1,000	N/A	$1,000
Operations scheduled	2000	Started	2001	Started	2005	2001
Voice (Kbps)	4.8	9.6	4.8	2.4, 4.8	16.0	4.2
Data (Kbps) up/down	2.4	7.2	2.4	2.4	16.0 kbits 2/64 mbs 64/64 mbs	0.3-9.6
System cost	$4.6B	$2.6B	$1.1B	$3.7B	$9.0B	$750M
Satellite lifetime	10 years	7.5 years	N/A	5 years	10 years	5 years
Number of satellites	10 + 2 spare	32+	46	66 + 6 spare	30	10 + 6 spare
Number Operational Guessed on 6/99	1	24	0	66 + 8 spare	0	0
Multiple access method	TDMA	CDMA	CDMA	FDMA, TDMA, TDD	TDMA, SDMA, FDMA, ATDMA	CDMA
Investors	Inmarsat, Hughes Space	Loral Qualcomm, AirTouch, Vodafone, Deutsche Aerospace, Dacom	Orbital, Bell Atlantic, Raytheon	Motorola, Raytheon, Great Wall Industry, Khrunichev Ent., DDI, Lockheed, Kyocera, Mitsui, Mawardi	Bill Gates, Craig McCaw	Westinghouse, Harris Corp., Israeli Aircraft Industries
Phone	44 181 600 2000	408 473 5872	703 227 7140	602 732 2012	206 803 1400	800 ELL IPSO