One constellation, the Iridium system, with 66 spacecraft, is now in place, and more are planned.

The Iridium system offers significant advantages associated with the much faster data transfer.

In addition to being expensive, the Iridium system is more ambitious technologically than any rival system.

The Iridium system deals with "minutes", which are subdivided into several much smaller "units".

The Iridium system uses three different handoff types.

The Iridium satellite-communications system they used was a huge breakthrough in global communications.

The Iridium system was designed to speed communications worldwide.

Eagle River and Motorola, which helped develop the Iridium system, have already made $5 million in emergency financing available.

Motorola's Iridium system would provide wireless connections over virtually every spot on the earth's surface and be capable of handling 200 simultaneous calls.

The unit includes the proposed Iridium global communications system that will use 66 low earth orbit satellites.