Hi Q*uarice,
I just want to share a few comments from the CDMA Americas Congress this past week.
Craig Farrill, VP and CTO for Vodafone Airtouch, was part of a panel--as well as a presenter, who discussed the strategy and merit going forward of reducing the cost of running a wireless network. The ultimate goal is to reduce cost to approximately 4 cents per Megabit (I believe it was Megabit--i was recovering from jetlag and lack of sleep). Anyhow, he showed that with the marginal increases in revenue realized by adding various data services (personalized to each customer's requirements), along with upcoming bandwidth availability, that Vodafone/Airtouch was on track to be there in the near future.
Durring the Q&A session, I asked Craig how the Globalstar piece of the puzzle fit into the overall strategy and scheme of his company, especially with regard to how cost sensitive their wireless strategy has become.
His reply, first and foremost, was "Make no doubt about it, Globalstar is going to be successful". "It will play a major role in bridging the gap between Europe and North America " (or something to that extent). Also, something to the order of "it was going to be offered in Brazil, India.....".
My main point, though, is that he stated, with conviction, that G* would be successful. That said a lot IMHO. Now if G* were to fail and go into CH11, well, I guess I would never trust the word of a CTO again (unless, he was from, say, Qualcomm).
I also had a conversation with a senior Qualcomm Exec. at the conference (I will not mention any names)who told me that Q* had the Globalstar phones and were ready to Rock n' Roll--They are just awaiting word. I didn't have time to pry into the quantity. I asked him for his thoughts on the negative sentament out there for MSS. He said the nervousness was just do to the failure of Iridiot and ICO.
Lastly, one of the themes that all the operators had been preaching at the conference was the need to not set customer expectations too high. It is much, much better to set lower expectations, and then surpass those expectations, than to promise the world (Iridiot) and then to under-deliver.
So, in spite of the lack of information (which I agree is a problem), I personally believe that all systems are a go, and we shareholders just need to continue to test our patience a little bit longer.
We will know soon enough. Best regards,
Jeff |
