Teledesic is a company that is building a broadband internet network that will provide global communication links via a constellation of 288 LEO, low-earth-orbit, spacecrafts. The service, backed by Bill Gates and Craig McCaw, will act like a network operator linking customers worldwide by supporting communications from high quality voice channels to broadband channels supporting videoconferencing, interactive multimedia and real-time two-way digital data flow. Service is planned to commence in 2005.

Teledesic was founded in Bellevue, WA, a suburb of Seattle, in June. Most of the funding has come from Bill Gates and Craig McCaw. By 1994 Teledesic had the initial system design completed and a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) application to get a large chunk of the Ka-band, the communication band they planned to use, filed. Because Teledesic felt that the digital revolution is just as fundamental as the industrial revolution their initial goal was to create a system that would provide affordable access to advanced network connections to all of those parts of the world that will never get such advanced services through current capabilities. They believe that such a system will change all aspects of our societies. By March of 1997 Teledesic had obtained an FCC license for the communication spectrum they wanted to use as well as having the World Radio Conference designate the corresponding necessary international spectrum for their service. In 1998 Motorola, whose Celestri project was seen as one of the major competitors to the Teledesic system, joined forces with Teledesic. The solution to another aspect, seen as a major hindering problem to the Teledesic system, was solved in 1999 when Teledesic signed a major launch contract with Lockheed Martin.

Teledesic's global service is planned to begin in 2005. They plan to offer worldwide access to high-level communication links that will support downlink speeds of 64 Mbps and uplink speeds of 2Mbps. Some higher-speed terminals will be able to offer 64 Mbps or greater speeds in a two-way capacity. 64Mbps represents access speeds in excess of 2,000 times faster than a typical 28.8kbps analog modem. This service is planned to operate through a constellation of 288 LEO satellites where each satellite acts as a node in a large-scale packet-switching network. The entire project is estimated to cost about $9 billion.