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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Globalstar Telecommunications Limited GSAT
GSAT 64.59-4.4%3:59 PM EST

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To: tero kuittinen who wrote (21362)1/20/2001 8:15:58 PM
From: rf_hombre  Read Replies (1) of 29987
 
Tero, you make the valid point that Vodafone has in fact a disencentive to market and sell G phones, at least in the European market.

However, I do question the assumption that “satellite phones can never be a mainstream market.” Satellite minutes are far cheaper to produce than terrestrial minutes. Not all base stations are lucky enough to be sitting at Heathrow. Some unfortunate $500k cells are actually condemned to cover G* challenged moose hunters in Lappland. Excuse my cognitive dissonance but I find no reason why an inherently cheaper, more reliable service should fail to garner customers.

Sure, the phones are too big, the battery life is 10x less that of my 7110 and there is no inbuilding coverage as of yet. But at a discount to cellular, particularly with respect to roaming charges, I cannot envisage why there would not be a sizable market for the service. I will run out and buy immediately the new smaller and long awaited QCOM phone (jamming tomorrow?, you betcha!) and if roaming MOUs were at a discount to cellular, to &$*$ with vanity, I would just settle for the GSP-1600.

And how many of your crème de la crème subs would want to have a “switch to satellite” option when their n’th access attempt is denied? I posit quite a few. Too bad our ineffectual management and marketing do not understand enough about mobile to position the service properly, as either a footprint equalizer for a coverage hungry SP or capacity infill for the bandwidth starved.

If these folks don’t get it, others will. Call me a dreamer...

rf_hombre
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