Let's Talk
Let us, for one minute, forget the boys on their fancy boats. The consultant, who needs to make a call home to check his bank balance. They all may fret about the cost of the call. I think Globalstar is designed for a whole different audience.
People in the villages of Pakistan, India, CHina, and Indonesia will have access to GSTRF through a fixed wireless line. In a sense, it will be like a public phone booth.
Some may wonder who in the world these people will call. Who will call them? But they have relatives and friends working and living all over the world. That little frail Indian woman in the village of Goa in India, has a son who writes software for Qualcomm in the USA. A lady on the outskirts of Manila has a daughter who is a nurse in New York. In spite of the good fortune showered on the children, the family remains out of touch. To these folks, a phone call to a loved one is the most precious thing in the world. Globalstar will serve these people who remain unlinked to the world except for post.
I've seen Indians stand in line for hours on their one day off in 100 degree heat, at an international pay phone in Dubai to make a call to their mum in Bombay. They scheduled the call through the post weeks earlier and their mum has been sitting patiently for hours in the house of a friend in Bombay who has a phone only because she bribed a local official.
Her loved one is laying bricks for a new hospital in Dubai or Saudi Arabia. Is Globalsar too rich for their blood? Well my friend, blood is everything to these people. They will pay half a months salary to talk to their people. I've seen it. The third world is alive and well and they will utilize Globalstar to an extent that most people in the West cannot imagine.
How many expat Indians and Pakistanis, Thais, Filipinos and Indonesians are out there? Millions. They are building the infrastructure for the third world and the first world as well. They go where the work is. Dubai, SaudiArabia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, and yes even the USA. They work for their family. They live for word from their family.
This market alone is huge. You can't quantify everything in cost per minute. No one can put a price on a simple phone conversation with the people who inspire young men and women to labor for ten hours a day in the most extreme circumstances.
Applying western values to eastern realities doesn't work.
Globalstar will be profitable. And it will benefit people in the world who need it most. (no I don't mean the capitalists on this thread). I mean the people of the third world. Even at the upper limits of cost per minute it will cut the cost of their phone calls in half and more. But most importantly, communication is now immediate. A death in the family. A joyous birth. GSTRF changes their world. It's priceless.
Can't expect most Americans to appreciate the potential of GSTRF. We've never known anything else. That's why Globalstar is cheap. We really just don't understand.
Globalstar. Just watch it fly. |
