RS, it's weird being deaf dumb and blind while travelling. When Globalstar gets WWeb on the next constellation, I'll be a lot happier. Sure, it will only be 384kpbs [I think that's the speed being planned] but it is not bad.
With ICO now getting serious support, there is obviously going to be serious competition so the gentle rollouts and stuff will have to be sidelined. Serious feral marketing and free legs of lamb will be needed.
You are right, I've missed quite a bit. But if Ericy has supplied 3000 handsets and Globalstar was hiding them at Telecom99 because they weren't working very well, that's not a good situation. Okay, maybe gateway construction is a bigger issue in Australia and I agree it would be difficult to make the handset work without the Dubbo gateway. To take until the end of March is slow going. That's not the way to beat competitors. Refusing to sell Qualcomm handsets isn't a good idea either. Forcing customers is not good. Pricing choices for customers is good. If they want to buy cdmaOne/Globalstar, let them. Just price the handsets at the right price and charge the right monthly fee and minute price and Vodafone will still make heaps. If they refuse Qualcomm handsets, they'll lose business and annoy customers. Denying them their request is definitely not good marketing.
Telit will need to come out with a smaller handset! Their first one is too big - more hefty than Qualcomm's.
The Western Hemisphere is the fun place to watch, as you say. My guess is that $1.50 really must be acceptable for how many handsets they have available. After all the concern, for the marketers to get that wrong would be so embarrassing for them and show such incompetence on their part that they will be fired and maybe even sued for negligence. They should have been preselling so many handsets that they KNOW that $1.50 will be fine. To have a failed launch and a climb-down on price will be a massive admission of failure.
If Qualcomm sees a successful launch at $1.50 per minute, they should stick the price of the handsets up! Make the handsets $1200 wholesale. The Service Providers can pay the price from the $1.50 per minute. Maybe Qualcomm will be able to charge $2000 if demand at $1.50 per minute is as high as the Service Providers seem to think it will be.
Some think handsets should be cheap. Well, I'm a Qualcomm shareholder and I want to charge what the market will bear. The Service Providers seem intent on making obscenely huge profits compared with their terrestrial minutes which sell for less than 40c per minute and they have to provide a fortune in capital to make those minutes. They are planning on making $1 a minute on Globalstar with little capital invested. Well, Qualcomm should nab a bigger share of that $1.
When there are millions of handsets pouring off the production line or there is ICO competition then Qualcomm should trim the handset price. Until then, the service providers need to be squeezed between the handset price and the customer minute price. The Service Providers have been dozey! Blundering along, doing pathetic soft launches, making little effort and now delaying launch of service until sometime next year while minutes rot in space.
Don't expect Qualcomm to feed them more with low handset prices! [Not saying you said that - just a general rant into cyberspace]
Having a good vent,
Maurice
[There should be 10000 handsets in use right now since the satellites are ready enough and they are the big, expensive and difficult part] |
