| | Teledesic Plays Its Last Card, Leaves the Game |
 | | From its beginnings in 1991 and its formal FCC application in 1994, Teledesic evolved from a system proposing a low-orbiting constellation of 840 satellites, to one with 288 satellites, and finally to a medium Earth orbit constellation of 30 satellites. |
 | | With Teledesic abandoning its rights, FCC officials now are mulling whether to return the frequencies to the common global pool managed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a United Nations affiliate based in Geneva. |
 | | Ironically, the week after Teledesic’s letter to the FCC, the agency issued a broad order setting out its proposal for how Teledesic would share its frequencies with the several other satellite-broadband proposals that had applied for the spectrum in a second round of applications. |
| www.space.com /spacenews/archive03/teledesicarch_071403.html (752 words) |