Mq, I agree that this idea is not a good one for Globalstar, since it will limit the number of satellite connections, and they could not afford to do it anyway.
You and I have always agreed that there is a much larger demand for satellite minutes (marketed correctly and at the right price) than the current constellation can provide. Additionally, almost all of the existing Globalstar phones are already dual mode, meaning that they can already talk to appropriate local cellular networks where available, so there would be no added utility to the consumer.
In ICO's case, however, they have no infrastructure in place as of yet. This may be a back-door proposal to allow them to use their spectrum to build an ordinary cellular system, something they are confident can make money, because they've done it before and made money doing it.
ICO certainly needs to be more creative than Iridium and Globalstar, who have poured billions of our money down the rathole.
G* built its system on the premise of being a satellite system that also could talk to cellular systems if it had to. ICO may be turning that on its head by building a cellular system that could talk to a satellite if it had to.
Frankly, if Verizon were to offer a phone about 2x the size/weight of my wife's Kyocera 2035 that could also do satellite, and it did not cost much more to own or any more to use except when actually in satellite mode, I think that would be a winner even if the minutes were expensive. |
