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Zendog500 t1_j36s3du wrote

I purchased a bunch of Iridium shares 10 years ago on the hope that its satellites would be worth something. They went into bankruptcy and lost it all.

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Hello-There-Im-Zach t1_j36x0bu wrote

Tale as old as time. Sorry friend.

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beastpilot t1_j37jkjg wrote

Iridium went bankrupt 23 years ago, before Clinton was impeached, while Yeltsin was still in power in Russia, before Lil Nas X was born, and before we saw dead people in the Sixth Sense.

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Zendog500 t1_j401bo6 wrote

I purchased 50,000 shares at a whopping $0.04 in 12/13/2007. So actually 16 years ago

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beastpilot t1_j402xry wrote

None of that makes any sense. Iridium was a private company between 1999 and 2008. You could not buy shares in 2007.

It IPO'd in 2008 for $9 per share and has only gone up from there to $60 today.

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xShooK t1_j37dqdp wrote

They went bankrupt in 99 after start up?

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damifynoU t1_j37xbvy wrote

Pretty sure the government bought their satellites because iridium was going to crash them into the ocean to decomission the whole fleet.

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bergsteroj t1_j38egm2 wrote

It was Motorola who was going to crash the satellites rather than keep maintaining them. They spent tons of money develop h the system for the completely wrong market (which was completely taken over by widespread cell phones).

Iridium is the name of the satellite constellation as well as the company that was eventually formed to save the satellites (was a mess getting funding and insurance agreements that Motorola would accept). The system is still highly used for remote wildness communication (such as Garmin InReach), satellite phones by military and other expeditionary groups, and making inroads to take marker share from companies like IMARSAT for cruise ships and airlines.

The satellites are still very much functioning and in use and new ones being launched.

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jonathanrdt t1_j37zojy wrote

The platform was built decades ago for phone calls. It’s a terrible data delivery system.

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joemaniaci t1_j383f2e wrote

I was about to say, used iridium satellite phones dedicated to communicating using satellites. They were hot fucking garbage.

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