Wicked Problems. A wicked problem is a social or cultural problem that is difficult or impossible to solve for as many as four reasons: incomplete or contradictory knowledge, the number of people and opinions involved, the large economic burden, and the interconnected nature of these problems with other problems.
Surely you remember Iridium, Motorola Corporationâs $5 billion low-Earth-orbit debacle. Planned in the mid-1980s, the system was archaic by the time it was deployed in 1998, offering global communications from a brick-size, $3,000 phone at charges from $6 to $30 a minute.
The Inmarsat satellite telephone system, originally developed in 1979 for safety of life at sea, is now also useful for areas out of reach of landline, conventional cellular, or marine VHF radio stations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mobile_phones.