Just ask Motorola, whose Iridium satellite phone network is in bankruptcy.

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Its Iridium satellite-based global phone system switches all calls in the sky without using any ground stations, an impossibly difficult task.

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That seems to have escaped the backers of Iridium and ICO Global Communications, two satellite-phone ventures that have landed in bankruptcy court after spending billions of dollars on technology without sufficient regard to who would pay for it.

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