George,
<<Thanks for the Hound excerpt--greatness arrives at the Silicon Investor.>>
My pleasure, sir.
In my initial skimming of the GTR, I was a bit surprised to find no reference to Vodafone. As you know, they just bought Airtouch, making them the largest wireless service provider in the world (28 million customers), with a home base and established presence in the fastest growing wireless markets in the world (Europe). They have recently teamed up with Globalstar to provide satellite service as well, which I view as opening the door to a new market besides the pure wireless play. They are rolling out a new Qualcomm satellite phone that actually looks like a cell phone----not one of those earlier versions, which boasted all the convenience and portability of a Sears Die Hard. The phone is, of course, CDMA technology (VODA apparently is not one of those insular European types).
They claim that their service provider, Net Access, connects you to the internet in "typically less than 10 seconds, according to our tests..." The technology---which I presume involves a cable hookup from laptop directly to the phone, but no wireless modem per se---is inferior to Richochet's wireless modem in terms of speed, but the price is better, at least for the moment ($5/mo vs. $30/mo). Also, Vodafone has a huge, ready-made market already in their laps, the vast majority of whom probably don't know (or particularly care) that Richochet has a faster wireless modem. Besides, the novelty of getting wireless internet access to go with your laptop would be irresistible to most customers with laptops, I would think, and they can get it from their current provider. And, as we've seen with innumerable technologies, including wireless phones, fax machines, e mail, internet access, etc., initial novelty and convenience seem to inexorably evolve into dependence---which people are willing to pay for.
It would seem to me that VOD, their technology, and their direction mesh quite well with the Gilder Telecosmic Paradigm; any thoughts?
Regards,
Walkingshadow
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