Iridium gateway blocks
Iridium, the first global satellite-phone network, runs into permissioning at every gateway. American regulators block licences in markets deemed states of concern, and a global service quietly becomes a discretionary one.
A working catalogue entry, kept current. Each paragraph is drawn from the publicly documented record.
Motorola's Iridium constellation begins commercial roll-out planning, intending to offer voice service from any point on Earth via a network of 66 LEO satellites. Country-by-country gateway licensing turns out to be a quiet permissioning regime: American regulators block or condition licences in a number of "states of concern".
Iridium's promise of universality is, in practice, granted on a country-by-country political basis. The architectural lesson is absorbed by every subsequent global broadband constellation: even a service that is technically global is, regulatorily, a series of national franchises that someone in Washington can withhold.
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