OXFORD, United Kingdom-Iridium L.L.C. launched its global mobile satellite service last November, and demand for the service reportedly is high, but so far largely unfulfilled. Shortage of handsets is being cited as the main culprit.
Such a situation is not uncommon in the early days of a radically new communications concept. The first GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) networks experienced similar shortages in 1992 when operators plaintively redefined the acronym as, “God Send Mobiles.” But such situations tend to be resolved quickly and soon forgotten.
Rival mobile satellite operators, the future competitors to Iridium, already have issued development contracts for their handsets. ICO Global Communications has appointed five suppliers, and Globalstar L.P., three. Iridium has just two: Motorola Inc., naturally, and Kyocera Corp.
Outside of Japan, Kyocera is hardly a household name in the telecommunications community. But that could be about to change.
“We are a company in transition,” said Hideki Ishida, chief financial officer of Kyocera. “Our telecommunications business was 100-percent domestic last year, but now we are changing. One of our dreams is to become a global supplier.”
Kyocera began life 40 years ago in Kyoto developing ceramics, hence the name. It is now a global corporation with a remarkable commitment to environmental protection, producing components and devices in the electronics, telecommunications, automotive, energy, optical and medical sectors. Founder Kazuo Inamori introduced competition into the Japanese telecommunications market in 1984 with the launch of DDI Corp., now a 25-percent owned affiliate of Kyocera.
“Our business philosophy is that we don’t copy other people’s products,” said Yasuo Nishiguchi, executive vice president of Kyocera. “We come up with new concepts and create new markets.”
Last year Kyocera introduced the world’s first wireless video handset, operating on Japan’s PHS (Personal Handyphone System) network, and the world’s lightest cellular handset, operating on the PDC (Personal Digital Communications) standard, which weighs in at a mere 69 grams (about 2.4 ounces).
“Its specific gravity is less than that of water,” observed Nishiguchi of the TH181. “So it floats!”
As well as for PDC, Kyocera is producing cellular handsets to the AMPS (Analog Mobile Phone Service), TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access), GSM and cdmaOne (Interim Standard 95 Code Division Multiple Access) standards and plans to expand into overseas markets during 1999.
For Iridium, it is producing both dual-mode and single-mode terminals. Dual-mode operation uses an Iridium adapter, essentially a docking unit with a satellite antenna, into which a PDC, GSM, cdmaOne or AMPS terminal is plugged. It is a neat concept, which delivers flexibility in both usage and marketing.
But developing the Iridium terminals has not been straightforward. Dropped calls were a problem until the inclusion of a chip calculating the distance and speed of the low-flying Iridium satellites to compensate for Doppler effects. And Iridium’s switching-in-the-sky system means the satellite and handset software are intimately linked.
Motorola is developing the satellite software. “We have had some problems keeping up with the updates,” reported Hideaki Fujimoto of Kyocera’s Communication and Information System Group. “We have sometimes received three different versions within 24 hours.”
Kyocera and Motorola have a long-standing relationship. Such relationships are essential, observed Ishida, because DDI is competing with the powerful NTT. “We can only stand on our own through technical partnerships with Europe and the [United States]. DDI and Kyocera are therefore destined to become global.”
