I was looking around the GMPCS web site, looking at their alternatives to G*. They have various flavors of INMARSAT, that seem to start at about 3K$ to purchase. The airtime rate (fully terminated) runs about 3.75$/minute. I have no idea how many of these things they sell, of course. More than a thousand, less than 50 thousand a year I'd guess. Now along comes G* enabling GMPCS to offer a service at 50% of Inmarsat h/w cost, much lighter and simpler to use, no voice latency and the per minute price, again, 50% of the Inmarsat rate. Clearly a better product, and at 50% of the cost, and we're complaining it's too expensive!
Conventional cell phones are selling at upwards of 200M units per year. G* needs 0.5% of that volume to be very successful. Clearly, it needs to attract the users for whom the value of connectivity (individually or collectively) is highest. I think Maurice's analysis is flawed, because in many circumstances and for many people the information exchanged during a short phone call can make or break the results of countless man hours of effort spent off the phone.
By G*s own analysis, 99% of the world's population either doesn't need or can't afford G* service. The problem will be finding the 1% that do and can.
IMO no one knows what the magic price is that will maximize G* RoI, and that price is likely to vary from region to region and by user type, anyway. It seems to me the G* set up provides plenty of incentive to the SPs and retailers to find the "right" price pretty quickly. Frankly, it will happen faster if Irid is still in business, but is likely to happen soon enough, either way. |
