<There was no badmouthing or gloating about Iridium. > Rightly so too. That game is over and Globalstar should be concentrating on ICO and other competitors still to arrive. ICO is serious and will give complete coverage, unlike Globalstar which will not be covering New Zealand, Honolulu and many, many other areas where marginal gateways are uneconomic in the current Globalstar business plan.
When the main Globalstar areas are nearing capacity then there will be enough roaming customers to justify gateways in the marginal areas. But in the meantime, the only game in town [other than, maybe, a struggling Iridium] will be ICO.
While it is likely that ICO will not raise funds sufficient to justify launching billions of shareholder's funds into space for the next six months, if Globalstar proves to be very popular, that will give credence to ICO as well. The stock price will rise and ICO will get their money and launch. But ICO might just go ahead and launch in the next couple of weeks as planned.
On the funding just announced to complete Globalstar's needs, it seems to me that C'mon is right. If the idea is sound, the money flows, especially if the parent or related company is interested in putting in the money or backing a loan in this case. If loans at reasonable rates were not forthcoming, the shareholders would easily have put up the money in a rights issue [unlike ICO].
My test of the Globalstar phone was pretty good, but it did confirm that the link margin business is serious and line of sight is needed. It doesn't take many leaves or branches to stop the signal. I suspect rain or perhaps even clouds will put the kibosh on a call too. The Iridium sound quality seemed okay and the robustness of the call seemed a bit better than Globalstar [not that walking around a small tree trunk is a particularly precise way of measuring link margins when I have no idea at all where the satellites are].
Both Iridium and Globalstar need line of sight. The Globalstar voice quality, when properly established with a satellite at a good elevation, was really good.
Maurice
PS: RMiethe and C'mon, present subjunctives beat past participles. How about letting it go? Personally, I like C'mon's comments [they seem valid enough]. Discussion of grammar makes me feel ill. Anything but would be better - how about baseball, football or yes, even Rajala, or even nah...... I was going to say El Matador but can't - he'd say the gravitational field isn't strong enough to hold the satellites up. Now I feel queasy and imagine discussions about grammar, while watching Mark McGiver score a record number of touchdowns in one innings while El Matador lectures about Globalstar gateways falling over in soft soil in Asia where people have a very low value.
Meanwhile, it seems that Bill Clinton is interested in John Ashbolt's suggestion of a leg of lamb with each Globalstar handset. Bill has deferred the decision on trade protectionism for USA sheep farmers for weeks now. Now, Charlene Barshefsky has phoned in sick or with a family crisis or something, rather than come to NZ this week to face a lot of Free Trade Wolves in Sheep's Clothing. Even Xena Albright is lying low rather than get another lecture about atavistic bombing of the Chinese embassy from the real Xena.
It's obviously a bit embarrassing for the USA to burble on about Free Trade when they can't cope with a bit of sheep competition from a dinky little place like New Zealand and feel the need to introduce trade protectionism. Zhu Rongji will be watching VERY closely. So will Japan.
Life's a giggle! |
