Dave, that's true. Trustworthy is merely a necessary but not sufficient variable in success. There are lots of other factors for success, but trustworthiness is the first thing I'm interested in. If not there, I'm not interested in any other aspects.
Globalstar can't really be called a failure until the lifetime of the system expires and invested capital has been lost. Even though I lost the great majority of my investment, that doesn't mean Globalstar has failed. It means I failed as an investor and Globalstar's management failed and the business failed. But Globalstar as a 3D physical entity cannot be said to have failed if eventually the assets produce, for whoever owns it then, a return on investment of the original development cost [NOT what the final owners pay for the assets but the actual construction cost].
My posts were not that Globalstar would offer a dynamic pricing, but that they should. I was also ranting for years that they would likely fail with their high-priced marketing strategy. My argument was that they should start with really cheap pricing to fill the system quickly, then raise prices to avoid overloading, busy signals, dropped calls and frustrated callers.
I bet heavily that when their initial strategy failed, as was evident by May 2000, they would lower their prices to get it moving.
Silly me!
Two years on, they are continuing with totally failed imagination, totally failed negotiation for restructuring, waste of remaining money, failure in all regards and now the ignominious end game is looming of being absorbed as a department of Inmarsat by that old government department seat-warmer, Olof.
Inmarsat will NOT go for a low-priced business. They will fritter away the assets.
What a waste. What a tragedy, literally - people have died who would have had a phone with which they would have called for help and been rescued if Globalstar hadn't been destroyed. Millions of people should now have a Globalstar phone and the phones should now be cute little RadioOne devices, usable almost everywhere, with long battery life and with many functions. Instead, they have the old-style flat battery phones and 70,000 subscribers making only 40 minutes of calls a month [give or take a few].
It's pathetic.
Mq
PS: On Leap Wireless, I remain unconvinced that eat-all-you-like pricing is better than a Cat's Eyes pricing plan [aka Wacky Wireless] where pricing is a function of base station loading and the current price per minute shows in the eyes of a cat sitting on the screen.
By running the network at 80% or 90% of capacity, or 95% or 100% in peak times, but without any busy signals, profits would be much higher, network construction costs would be halved, subscriber frustration with overloading and dropped calls would reduce and prices could be halved and lots of customers gained.
Running things at 20% or 25% of capacity is no way to run a railroad. Airlines would go broke at those loadings. |
