Word: networking
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...suburban Chicago electronics giant (1989 sales: $9.6 billion) hopes to put in place by 1996 a network of 77 satellites that can relay phone calls to any spot on the planet. That means when the boss has a question, no Himalayan mountaintop or African jungle encampment will be beyond the reach of the ringing phone. Named Iridium, for the chemical element whose nucleus is orbited by 77 electrons, the Motorola plan would constitute the first global cellular system. Calls would cost $1 to $3 a minute, compared with about 50 cents a minute for cellular calls within urban systems linked...
While Motorola stands ready to supply the handsets (initial price: $3,500 apiece), the company will need investment partners to finance the estimated $2.3 billion cost of building and launching the network of 700-lb. satellites. The firm is negotiating a joint venture with British Telecom, as well as with potential investors in Japan, Australia and Hong Kong. Motorola estimates that Iridium will need 700,000 users to become profitable. While that is roughly equivalent to the Pittsburgh white pages, it is less than 1% of the 100 million people around the world who are expected to be using cellular...
...through the high life of Munich or standing insouciantly beside its spired city hall, the man known as Leo is king of the social jungle. The TV commentator on the Bavarian capital's Schickeria -- the chic and shallow set -- is brought to life twice a month on the ARD network by ANDREAS IK, 37, a onetime psychology student. Life's a peep show for Lukoschik, and his unorthodox interviews with the rich and notorious -- he once sat on a white stallion to interview a party girl bathing in mare's milk -- attract millions of viewers. Not to mention voyeurs...
...speed its transformation to a market-based economy, Czechoslovakia (pop. 15.6 million) plans to triple the capacity of its overworked telephone system. In June the government chose U S West and Philadelphia-based Bell Atlantic to build a cellular-phone network beginning this fall. The U.S. firms will share a 49% stake in the venture...
...Tucker wins the prize for the year's best mystery title: He's Dead -- She's Dead: Details at Eleven (St. Martin's Press; 312 pages; $17.95). The puzzler that follows is just as piquant. Jim Sasser, onetime TV commentator and now a writer of thrillers, stops by the network to see an old Vietnam war buddy. He is not a happy camper. Cost cutting is under way, firings are the order of the day, and a terrorist is threatening to do some eliminating of his own. For a lark, Sasser decides to probe, just the way his fictional heroes...