Iridium riding high

Iridium Satellite LLC, the global supplier of mobile satellite communication services, said that it had more than 114,000 subscribers as of 31 December 2004, a 22.5% increase from 2003.

The company’s revenue for the full-year 2004 increased by 23.2% over total revenue for the previous year. These results reflect the success of the company?s vertical market

strategy, which places particular emphasis on its three largest segments of maritime, aviation and defence/government. Of particular importance, demand for Iridium’s data services grew by 49% over 2003.

In the maritime industry, Iridium announced four significant agreements in 2004 resulting in more than 300 ships being equipped with Iridium satellite terminals. Columbia Ship management began equipping more than 100 ships with Iridium satellite terminals to comply with SSAS (Ship Security Alert System) carriage requirements and reduce communications costs. In a similar agreement, Univan Ship Management is equipping its fleet with Iridium satellite systems for lower-cost, ship-to-shore communications. Stolt-Nielsen Transportation Group selected Iridium satellite telephone systems for its entire fleet of chemical and parcel tankers, and installed Iridium satellite terminals at its headquarters in Houston and Rotterdam for lower cost communications with ships at sea. EastMed fitted its fleet of 34 tankers and bulkers with Iridium SSAS terminals.

For 2005, the company will be completing the development of a new netted push-to-

talk communications architecture, which allows one user to talk (or transmit data) to many users simultaneously. This architecture will provide an efficient broadcast service within a designated region for military, homeland security and commercial applications requiring netted voice and data communications. Iridium expects to make this innovative service available in the fourth quarter of 2005.

In the second half of 2005, Iridium will launch a new lower cost data modem for short-burst data communications. This data module will leverage the 100% global coverage of the Iridium network and will feature low latency, two-way communications, broadcast and high throughput data capabilities. In addition, the company is exploring a

number of new uses for its network in connection with Wi-Fi systems, Bluetooth and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags, as well as other new wireless technologies.