Teledesic was the brainchild of Bill Gates and Craig McCaw, set up a few years ago to launch a constellation of low-earth orbiting satellites and provide global high-speed Internet service. An ambitious plan, but during the late ‘90s ambitious broadband plans looked exciting and worthwhile. Another company with a similar vision, Iridium, tanked a while ago, and yesterday Teledesic announced that it was going to cut its losses and stop work on the satellite venture. According to this press release, “the company does not believe that it is prudent, purely on speculation, to continue the substantial capital expenditures required to construct and launch the satellites consistent with the timing required to meet FCC and ITU regulatory milestones.”
