Saudi Prince to Invest in Teledesic

Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal plans to invest in Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates’ Teledesic Corp., a statement from the billionaire investor’s office said. “Prince Alwaleed plans to invest in a joint project with Teledesic to finance and launch a network of . . . satellites that will transmit voice, data and the Internet to cover every spot on Earth,” said the statement from his office in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The statement did not give any details on the prince’s planned investment in the $9-billion “Internet-in-the-sky” project of Gates and telecommunications pioneer Craig McCaw. Teledesic is backed by aerospace giant Boeing Co. The statement said the prince, 41, met McCaw during a tour of the United States in the last two weeks. Teledesic, based in Seattle, plans to launch a network of 288 low-Earth-orbit satellites around 2002 to provide fiber-optic-like access to telecommunications services such as broad-band Internet access, videoconferencing and high-quality voice digital data.