Teledesic LLC and Motorola, Inc. have agreed to end their Teledesic system agreement in the wake of Teledesic’s plans to merge with ICO-Teledesic Global Limited, Teledesic announced today.
The mutual decision by Teledesic and Motorola to end the system agreement that called for Motorola to serve as prime contractor of the Teledesic system gives Teledesic the flexibility to pursue alternative approaches for building its global, broadband satellite communications network.
The McCaw organizations and Motorola will maintain a close relationship, and Motorola remains an investor in Teledesic.
Telecommunications pioneer Craig McCaw and Microsoft founder Bill Gates are Teledesic’s two primary founding investors. Strategic investors also include Motorola, Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, The Boeing Company and The Abu Dhabi Investment Company.
Teledesic bills itself as the first licensed satellite communications network that will enable affordable, worldwide access to advanced telecommunications services such as computer networking, broadband Internet access and interactive multimedia – it just has to build the satellites first. Teledesic says it will be able deliver broadband data and value-added services over a global network optimized for the Internet Protocol.
