ORBCOMM is an American company that offers industrial Internet of things (IoT) and machine to machine (M2M) communications hardware, software and services designed to track, monitor, and control fixed and mobile assets in markets including transportation, heavy equipment, maritime, oil and gas, utilities and government. The company provides hardware devices, modems, web applications, and data services delivered over multiple satellite and cellular networks. As of June 30, 2021, ORBCOMM has more than 2.3 million billable subscriber communicators, serving original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as Caterpillar Inc., Doosan Infracore America, Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd., John Deere, Komatsu Limited, and Volvo Construction Equipment, as well as other customers such as J. B. Hunt, C&S Wholesale Grocers, Canadian National Railways, C.R. England, Hub Group, KLLM Transport Services, Marten Transport, Swift Transportation, Target, Tropicana, Tyson Foods, Walmart and Werner Enterprises. ORBCOMM owns and operates a global network of 31 low Earth orbit (LEO) communications satellites and accompanying ground infrastructure, including 16 gateway Earth stations (GESs) around the world. ORBCOMM is licensed to provide service in more than 130 countries and territories worldwide. History Founding and development of low Earth orbit satellite system The ORBCOMM low Earth orbit (LEO) system was conceived by Orbital Sciences Corporation (Orbital) in the late 1980s. In 1990, Orbital filed the world's first license application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the operation of a network of small LEO spacecraft to provide global satellite services of commercial messaging and data communications services via the company's ORBCOMM program. During the initial stages of the program, Orbital pursued a multi-pronged approach: regulatory approvals, ground infrastructure development and procurement of sites, modem development, and country licensing. In 1992, the World Administrative Radio Conference (WARC) supported the spectrum allocation for non-voice, non-geostationary mobile-satellite service. With WARC approval, Orbital set up a specific ORBCOMM program to develop satellites and ground infrastructure, and ORBCOMM became a wholly owned subsidiary of Orbital. In 1995, ORBCOMM was granted a full license to operate a network with up to 200,000 mobile Earth stations (MESs). ORBCOMM began procuring gateway Earth station (GES) locations and contracted with a division of Orbital Sciences, located in Mesa, Arizona, to develop and build four sets of GESs and associated spares. Land for the four GESs was procured or leased in Arizona, Washington, New York, and Georgia. After the 1992 WARC approval, ORBCOMM signed contracts with three modem developers and manufacturers: Kyushu Matsushita