Thanks, rhkohnen - that paints a much clearer picture for me. To pursue this issue a bit further, do you share concerns expressed by others (Vman most recently, I think) that data will hog so much band width it will reduce saleable voice minutes to such an extent it dooms the system to marginal profit? I guess this assumes the data revenue from IFN, for equivalent use of bandwidth, would be much less than voice revenue.
What is the bandwidth bottleneck, anyway? Is it the satellites or the gateways? Could IFN, should they begin maxing out existing gateway capacity, simply add a gateway or upgrade an existing gateway? Also, will CDMA 2.5 G and 3 G upgrades work as well for G*? In other words can 1Xrt and HDR perform the same magic for G* they are about to perform for cellular?
I guess my underlying question is, if bandwidth and data transmission speed can be increased with existing constellation, then there is no downside to the IFN deal. If it requires a trade off, what kind of load given the proposed IFN plan would it place on G*? From what I have seen thus far, the IFN deal may by itself guarantee G* profitability. From your post it seems you see this as a substantial source of revenue as well. Why then is Wall Street (and Vman, for that matter) giving this such a yawn? |
