Gary Garriott <garyg@vita.org>
John L. Mack <jlmack@erols.com>
D.K. Sachdev <dsachdev@worldspace.com>
Professor Seth G. Neugroschl <SN23@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Dear Gary:
==========
(1) Many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT
I) in response to my listserve
distribution "Rescue
of Iridium's 66 satellites at $5 billion (Part III
/ Responses) - April
15, 2000" which you can find at
<http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve/global-univ-2000.html>.
My previous listserve
distributions on this subjects were;
(a) "Rescue of Iridium's
66 satellites at $5 billion - April 5, 2000,
(b) "Rescue of Iridium's
66 satellites at $5 billion (Part II / Responses) - April 8, 2000
You can find them at
the same URL.
(2) YES, your Warn and Recovery Net
(WARN)" project is very exciting and
challenging <http://www.informatics.org/clarke/projects.html>.
Some excerpts are;
The opportunities provided by all types of systems such as store-and-forward
systems, mobile satellite systems, FEMA and USGS
systems, and Internet based web sites need to be integrated into
the planning and implementation."
9. On-the-Web Coordination and Planning Electronic Conferences
and Help Lines: It appears that one of the most effective means of
sharing information globally and at low cost will be through the
use of INTERNET and dedicated Intranets. Project Warn will seek to
advance the use of such electronic networks to coordinate progress
in the field as effectively as possible and on a global scale."
(3) In response to your inquiry, it may
be the matter how to get audio for
your WARN project, i.e.,
by straight analog audio?, by straight digital
audio?, or via Internet
telephony?
See the Talking Internet" in BUSINESS WEEK, May 1, 2000, Pages
174-192, which reports the proliferation of Internet telephony,
which we have advocated for many past years since 1993 when Mr.
Kelvin, a graduate student at the University of Illinois/Champlain
invented it which was later combined with CU-SeeMe of Cornell
University by the suggestion given from K-12 children in San
Diego. (VocalTec of Israel came later that.)
Net2Phone purchased gateway machines from VocalTec to
connect PCs and ordinary telephone units of Plain Old
Telephone Service (POTS). AT&T recently acquired Net2Phone
with $1.4 billion, as legitimizing the use of Internet telephony.
As mentioned in my previous
distribution of April 15 (which was
mentioned above), the
Internet telephony approach may be feasible with
the combined use of
Iridium and Worldspace satellites, as John Mack
proposed (ATTACHMENT
II).
Dear Mr. Sachdev:
=================
(4) Referring to ATTACHMENT III, can you
kindly accommodate a workshop
conference room for
about two dozen participants at your organization?
(5) Professor Seth G. Neugroschl of Columbia
University recently told me
that he would solicit
the attendance by his friend who is a former V.P.
of R&D at IBM and
then a board member of Motorola from which he recently
retired, if there will
be such a workshop.
(6) I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Best, Tak
****************************************
ATTACHMENT I
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 12:15:23 -0400
From: Gary Garriott <garyg@vita.org>
To: utsumi@friends-partners.org
Subject: RE: Rescue of Iridium's 66 satellites
at $5 billion (Part
III/Responses)
Hi again Tak,
Thanx for your continued interest in this subject.
To reiterate and perhaps
clarify, our interest was limited in the sense
that we were exploring the
extent to which Iridium could continue to provide
voice communications to the
disaster/relief community (remember WARN), perhaps
the larger development
community to some extent.
Knowledgable people, including ex-Iridium employees,
have made convincing
arguments that a coalition representing commercial
investors, and humanitarian
(and perhaps military) users could address the
issues.
Having a one-day information workshop is a good
idea. But we would need
representation from Iridium and Motorola (thus
indicating their prior interest
in the consortium approach) for it to be successful.
Gary Garriott
Director Informatics
VITA
(Volunteers in Technical Assistance)
http://www.vita.org
****************************************
ATTACHMENT II
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 04:56:46 -0400
From: John Mack <jlmack@erols.com>
To: utsumi@friends-partners.org
Subject: Re: Rescue of Iridium's 66 satellites
at $5 billion (Part
II/Responses)
Tak,
Just prior to Iridium's demise, I had initiated
talks between Iridium
and WorldSpace (my former employer), to combine
their systems to provide
virtually global Internet. The Iridium
system would provide the thin
uplink and the Worldspace (WS) system the relatively
fast downlink.
Utilizing the WS receiver (cost about $300) attached
to a computer would
provide the ability to do telemedicine, distance
education, etc., as
well as provide commercial possibilities for
entities to have video
conferencing (15 frames/sec) virtually anywhere.
The humanitarian
aspects could be approached through the WS foundation
<www.worldspace.org> with income from the
commercial side
<www.worldspace.com> offsetting some (all?)
of the operational costs.
Since Iridium collapsed I don't know where these
talks ended but it
might be worth exploring the technological feasibility
of such an
approach for VITA's mission as well as the mission
of others who have
shown interest.
John
****************************************
ATTACHMENT III
From: gu-l@friends-partners.org
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 17:05:03 -0400
To: dsachdev@worldspace.com
Cc: utsumi@friends-partners.org
Subject: Error Condition Re: Re: Rescue of Iridium's
66 satellites at $5 billion
I look forward to hear if such a workshop is organized.
Regards
DK
****************************************
List of Distribution
Gary Garriott
Director, Informatics
Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA)
1600 Wilson Blvd., Suite 500
P.O. Box 12438
Arlington, VA 22209-8438
703-276-1800 X19
Fax: 703-243-1865
garyg@vita.org
vita@vita.org
ECONET: VITA
Telex: 440192 VITAUI
Cable: VITAINC
www.vita.org/satvitpo.htm -- Press release on
Consorcio SAT/SatelLife/VITA
www.vita.org/consort.htm -- Press release on
satellite-users coalition
www.vita.org/slife.htm -- Press release on SatelLife-VITA
John L. Mack, CEO
John L. Mack & Associates
International Telecommunications Investment Consultant
P.O. Box 567
Upper Marlboro, MD 20773-0567
301-627-2188
Fax: 301-627-2188
jlmack@erols.com
D.K. Sachdev
Senior Vice President
Engineering & Operations
Worldspace Corporation
2400 N Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20037 USA
Tel: 202 969 6000
Direct: 202 969 6210
Fax: 202 969 6003
dsachdev@worldspace.com
www.worldspace.org
www.worldspace.com
Professor Seth G. Neugroschl
Co-chair Columbia University Seminar on Computers,
Man and Society
Columbia University
1349 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10128
212-876-7674
SN23@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu
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