Motorola Inc. has capped its funding on Iridium, which has been plagued with very slow growth in its subscriber base due to high on-air charges and large, unwieldy handsets. The waivers on which Iridium defaulted was on an $800 million Senior Secured Credit Facility for customer revenue covenants, as well as on a $750 million Secured Credit Facility. The company announced its was considering other restructuring options, and some analysts are anticipating an eventual bankruptcy.

The Iridium constellation of satellites is in orbit and complete, and most ground stations have been installed, suggesting that the federal government or a combination of government and industry users may some day want to revitalize the system. Similar low-earth networks from the Globalstar and ICO consortia are still in line to begin service next year, and developers are optimistic that their lower operational costs may keep them from suffering Iridium's fate.