After a phone conversation with Bob Textor I started to gather links to materials about Motorola's Iridium project and kindred realizations of global digital technology: Iridium and Teledesic: The Latest Contributors to the Information Revolution (Angela Adams)

C2 Corporation

http://www.Iridium.com/

Digital Satellite Systems for Internet Access (Syed Ali, Preetham Peter, & Jin White)

Lloyd's satellite constellations: Iridium

Providing Telecommunications Services to Rural and Underserved Areas

Metricom (mentioned in Dyson's Darwin Among the Machines, which I got on the advice of Freeman Dyson, and have found to be an excellent introduction to cyberhistory)