TerreStar Genus now available to anyone who wants one for just $1,150
Just how much is the promise of anywhere, anytime cellphone reception worth to you? If you answered "one thousand, one hundred and fifty dollars," well... your time has finally come.
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: business, channels, genus, little-hesitant, north, reception-worth, result, sat phone, satphone, terre, terrestar, video, winmo 6.5, wm6.5
TerreStar makes it official, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Teetering no longer . According to Reuters , satellite phone maker TerreStar has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to protect itself from liabilities in the range of $1.6 billion
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: bankruptcy, cake, ch11, chapter, chapter11bankruptcy, creditors, group, phone, satellite, satellite-phone, shame, terrestar
TerreStar teetering on bankruptcy?
Okay, look, guys -- we know putting a satellite into space is a pricey endeavor -- just ask Sirius XM -- but you literally just launched your first commercial device, the Genus , and we don't think that "launch a device then immediately declare bankruptcy" is a particularly sound business model. They're not there yet, but sure enough, the WSJ is claiming that newly-minted satphone operator TerreStar could be just days away from filing for Chapter 11 as it bears the brunt of around $1 billion in debt, possibly in the form of a well-structured and prearranged bankruptcy on the heels of discussions with the company's creditors. Seeing how restructuring does seem like the most likely scenario here, we wouldn't necessarily let this scare anyone off from buying a Genus -- but at $799, we doubt many of you were planning on running out this week and picking it up anyway
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: att, business, chapter, genus, launch, pricey-endeavor, satellitephone, satphone, sound, sound-business, terrestar, wsj
TerreStar Genus hybrid satellite phone hits AT&T at long last for $799
It's been just shy of a year since TerreStar's Windows Mobile-based Genus was announced for AT&T , offering a unique combination of GSM / HSPA backed up with satellite capability for those times when you find yourself in the middle of nowhere; in fact, you may have assumed that it had already been released by now. After all, this isn't the phone for 97 percent of the population -- it runs Windows Mobile and still works in places where us soft city folk would never dream of going -- so odds are good you never bothered to follow up on it. Fact is, though, it's just now available for the first time today, so as long as you've got a line of sight to TerreStar's bird and a willingness to tolerate WinMo 6.5.3, you'll be able to make and receive calls throughout the US , Puerto Rico, U.S.
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: att, breakingnews, cool, entry, genus, result, surrounding, terrestar, virgin-islands, windowsmobile, winmo, winmo 6.5.3, winmo6.5, winmo6.5.3
New US LTE network borne of satellite operators, launching next year
Over the next few years we're looking at major LTE build-outs in the US from at least two players -- Verizon and AT&T -- but we've rather unexpectedly gotten a third player coming into the fold today led by hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners. Basically, these guys just got regulatory approval last week to buy satellite operator SkyTerra , combining about 23MHz of spectrum through slivers of ownership in the 1.4GHz and 1.6GHz terrestrial bands with 10MHz of L-band satellite space.
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: entry, from-at-least, harbinger, hedgefund, lte, other-providers, result, skyterra, terrestar, time, unexpectedly, verizon
TerreStar Genus satphone gets beamed into an FCC lab
That projected Q1 2010 availability window for AT&T's first dual-mode satphone (and first satphone, period, for that matter) is looking pretty dang obtainable now that Elektrobit -- the device's manufacturer -- has secured FCC approval. As you can tell from the laboratory mugshot here, TerreStar's Genus is a pretty unassuming-looking Windows Mobile smartphone, which is pretty amazing when you consider that it'll more or less guarantee you coverage anywhere in the most ridiculously remote regions of North America and surrounding waters.