Ask YC: What happened to Teledesic?

I just recently found out about the Teledesic initiative of the 1990's to provide high-speed wireless internet acces to every location in the world. It apparently only cost $9 billion, and I was wondering if anyone has more knowledge or comments about why an effort like this never materialized?

It seems the economic and intellectual implications of such a network are enormous. For less than 1% of the price of the Iraq war, everyone in the world could have free access to global communication and information? That sound utopian, yet apparently it's completely in reach logistically. What has caused this effort to fail?