PCStel, I used an Iridium phone myself and phoned Valueman [in June 1999]. He initially thought "Oh NO!! This is awful" until he realized it was NOT the Globalstar phone, but the Iridium one. The voice quality was rotten. I then phoned him on the Globalstar phone and he was happy [he had not at that time given up on Globalstar due to bad management].
Iridium was reasonable on my end [me holding the phone]. But far from the quality of the Globalstar phone. I was not aware of it, but I believe Iridium also had significant latency problems [maybe intermittent and certainly wayyyy less than the horrible Geostationary systems such as ACeS].
However, I have used Globalstar QUALCOMM phones lots of times and the QUALCOMM versions have been simply excellent and there are so many users that it is indisputable that voice quality is simply excellent. When I used the Ericy and Telit phones at Telecom99, they were NOT so good, but still okay. I believe they've been improved since then.
I believe Iridium failed because of price of minutes and price of handsets and by the time they figured out they had to really get the Wacky Wireless marketing method going, it was too late and not enough people would want a phone if they were given it.
My concern is that Globalstar said they would learn from Iridium's mistakes. I have no idea which mistakes they learned from, but how to price the service is not one of them.
It is not good that you have ditched your short position and are looking for a yummy cheap buy at $6. Your duty [and Geoff's] should be to remain enthusiastic shorts and point out any mistakes, blunders, mismanagement etc so that I'll be warned. Also, you are supposed to short stock so I can buy more at $5. It's unfair that you swoop in ahead of me and become another damn closet short in long drag.
Iridium couldn't be used in some places due to licensing issues, so it's true it couldn't be used everywhere, but I think that was inconsequential to the failure. Similarly, the lack of coverage of Globalstar is not the central point of failure so far; the problem has largely been expensive pricing by the service providers [including Globalstar] who foolishly believed the market researchers [my experience of market researchers is that one is better to use good judgement and chicken entrails].
It's amazing how long Iridium is lingering.
Mqurice |
