Following its rebirth, Iridium has been doing well. In addition to their government contracts, deals with private firms have been increasing and now make up about half of their revenue. Their data transmission business is pulling a lot of weight and the company could have broke even this year had they not decided instead to invest in creating short-message service. But they are facing a dilemma. Iridium is required to sign a contract to build and launch a new batch of satellites, even though they don’t need them until 2012. This is a regulation from the FCC to guarantee their commitment to use a reserved set of airwaves. Unfortunately, the satellite business is shifting to the ground. Competitor ICO, who had also struggled to survive, is turning to a terrestrial solution to cover more area and even bring broadband service to rural locations. Iridium could alter their satellite model to take advantage of on-ground repeaters as well, but they’ll need to ask for flexibility from the government to keep their money from being tied up in this federally enforced contract.