Company: IRDM
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001628280-25-005302
Chunk: 7

Company: Iridium Communications Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 7
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 our encrypted handset, IoT devices, tactical radio services and other products as mission-critical services and equipment. The U.S. government continues to make significant investments in a dedicated gateway on a U.S. government site to provide operational security and allow U.S. government handset and IoT users to communicate securely with other U.S. government communications equipment. This gateway is only compatible with our satellite network. In September 2019, we entered into the EMSS contract and continue to see usage of our network under this contract. With ongoing investments by the DoD, we expect to see growth in adoption as enhancements are implemented and new services are launched. We also view the SDA contract as a confirmation and expansion of our strategic relationship with the U.S. government. 

•Wholesale distribution network. The specialized needs of our global end users span many markets, including emergency services, maritime, aviation, government, utilities, oil and gas, mining, recreation, forestry, heavy equipment, construction, railways and other transportation. We sell our products and services to commercial end users through a wholesale distribution network of service providers, VARs and VAMs, which often specialize in a particular line of business. Our distributors use our products and services to develop innovative and integrated communications solutions for their target markets, embedding our technology in their products or combining our products with other technologies, such as GPS and terrestrial wireless technology. In addition to promoting innovation, our wholesale distribution model allows us to capitalize on the research and development expenditures of our distribution partners, while lowering overall customer acquisition costs and mitigating some risks, such as consumer relationship risks. By supporting these distributors as they develop new products, services and applications, we believe we create additional demand for our products and services and expand our target markets at a lower cost than would a more direct marketing model. We believe our distribution network can continue to grow with us and increase our market penetration. For example, our network, spectrum and architecture are ideally suited to small, handheld devices used for personal communications, and we have leveraged our wholesale distribution approach to provide a wide array of such personal communications services using both Iridium and partner devices.

Our Business and Growth Strategies

•Leverage our largely fixed-cost infrastructure to grow our service revenue. Our business model is characterized by periodic higher capital costs in connection with designing, building and launching new generations of our satellites to support our 15-20 year constellation operational cycles, and a low incremental cost of providing service to additional end users. We are currently in a period of lower capital expense, which