Iridium announced last week it does not plan to meet its commercial launch goal of Sept. 23 because the mobile satellite service provider needs to tinker a bit more with its network. However, the company by Sept. 23 hopes to have 2,000 people using Iridium handsets on the Iridium network. Only thing is, they won’t be paying for the service. They’ll be testing it.
Postponing the commercial launch of service by six weeks or so shouldn’t hurt Iridium. After all, this is rocket science.
The postponement gives Iridium critics (and future competitors) a chance to laugh that the company didn’t meet its deadline. By close of business Wednesday, the company’s stock only dropped $2 on news of the postponement, which surprised me.
Wall Street tends to be fickle about wireless companies. The Street doesn’t take change in stride.
But take heart Iridium, even if naysayers are poo-poohing your announcement, one trade newspaper editor admires it. (I know, the consolation is overwhelming.)
Postponing launch is an honest option and in today’s environment, honesty should be revered. (Now if there is some huge technical problem no one is mentioning, I reserve the right to take back this column.)
It appears Iridium is taking to heart lessons other wireless carriers have learned about over-hyping the promise of service before they are able to deliver on that promise. SkyTel Communications Inc. was lambasted in the general media when its initial two-way launch didn’t go as smoothly as expected. Still, in my mind, that was better than Nextel Communications Inc.’s rollout of enhanced specialized mobile radio service in Los Angeles in the early ’90s. (RCR counted three commercial launches of ESMR service by Nextel in L.A. “Oh no, that wasn’t the real commercial launch. That was an expanded test. This is the commercial launch. Oh no, that wasn’t the real commercial launch …”)
The question for Iridium is not when the company will launch, but if there are enough people willing to buy MSS wireless service to make the service viable. And a few months after service is launched, we’ll find out that answer.
