Larry, I did reply to you on land charges - admittedly in the middle of a LOT of writing!
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You asked about land charges for Globalstar. Yes, there will be land line charges in addition to whatever the local retailer charges for Globalstar minutes. Usually, people would just use the local cellular service as they do now, at their current prices. It would only be when there is no terrestrial service that the handset would search for a Globalstar link. Subscribers will not be using Gobalstar and a cellular service simultaneously.
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These land charges would be the normal line charges people pay for any call from any other service - not toll call charges, but the charges backbone carriers charge telecom companies and these are low, in the order of 5 or 10 cents per minute for calls to anywhere. My guess is that a typical Globalstar call will cost subscribers about US$1 per minute. But that will depend on demand, time of day, geographic area. Made up of $0.45 to Globalstar, $0.10 to international links, $0.45 to the Globalstar retailer.
But I think you perhaps mean will there be extra cellular charges when the handset is operating on terrestrial service rather than satellite? Yes? I imagine that people would buy a Globalstar dual mode handset and choose their terrestrial supplier of service as a separate supplier. Globalstar would only bill them for satellite services. Globalstar could give them a single billing service by negotiating terrestrial service on behalf of Globalstar customers either GSM, analog or CDMA, Sprint, Primeco, whatever and some people would prefer this.
Outstanding finance needed to complete the first constellation of Globalstar is only $175 million since they increased the senior notes sale to $325 million instead of $200 million. They are paying a high interest rate.
The bent pipe over the ocean issue refers to the need for earth receiving stations and these can't be out in the water. So there is a need for earth stations on places like Pitcairn Island, Midway Island and the like so that people out on oceans can send a signal to the satellite and the satellite has somewhere to send it. Iridium doesn't have that problem because they just switch the signals from satellite to satellite. There aren't many places where there are no islands. Some of these would have to use signals back up to geostationary satellites since they are not part of the terrestrial wired Web so that would cause a voice delay in those areas. All populated areas though will have wired contact and high quality voice with no delay.
I can't see why there should be an "aircraft" problem other than for the same reason that there will be a need for earth stations in the vicinity.
I don't believe there is any difference in who Globalstar and Iridium will try to get as customers. They will both try to get the highest bidding subscriber. These will be the hot-shot, status-seeking, highly-paid, international business executive who wouldn't be seen dead with a terrestrial only cellphone. Globalstar's costs are low enough that they can also supply service to poorer people. They will aim to get these customers AND the premium customers.
Fortunately for Iridium, there is going to be big demand for satellite service and both of the first constellations will be filled
Maurice |
