Larry, sorry if it is tedious, but when words don't match reality, it's time yet again to point out the inaccuracies. Of course there is much more to the system than whether it is TDMA or CDMA. What matters is the holistic view of the system that the customer sees, right down to the decor of the shop where they consider buying the phone. I was emphasizing with the CDMA aspect of Globalstar, that there is a lot more technical wizardry to the LEOs than super complexity in space switching. Customers won't be bamboozled by that. Customers are notorious for looking for benefits which they want at a price they'll pay rather than features which technical geeks are in love with.
Good quality calls [CDMA] will rate higher with customers than whether the call travels through fibre or space.
You tediously raise the old line "they promised 20 times capacity"! Don't forget that in 1989, CDMA was but a theoretical twinkle in the inventors' eyes. Globalstar was already aborning. They didn't have the final details, but there was sufficient information to justify the effort. By the time Globalstar was getting up to the hardware stage and ready to start the final design and raise finance, the effectiveness of CDMA was well established in practise. The delivered capacity has been as expected. Improvements continue. You are a little out of date, they are delivering 10 times in the better systems. [ten times what is always a bit obscure to me as I assume that analog and TDMA systems have improved somewhat over the past 8 years]. They should quote handset minutes per erlang or something we can get a grip on rather than obscure capacity multiples. In any event, CDMA has proven much more spectrally efficient than TDMA or analog, with quality benefits thrown in!
Now, you tediously continue with the line that businessmen, those great heroes in the sky, rampage around the earth to all corners with nary a care for the cost of their calls. As long as they can do their billion dollar deals the instant they want to. Well, I've had expense accounts, lunches and travelled on planes and had to be available and been involved in billion dollar deals. I watch my pennies. These heroes of the sky will not be in business for long if they obliviously spend big heaps. Yes, they stay in good hotels. Yes, they buy expensive meals. Yes, they travel first or business class. Yes, they have late model, high quality cars. Yes, they want the best phone. But all these things have a cost. They usually have budgets.
The only benefit Iridium offers at the moment is the ability to make a call from Tristan da Cunha, Scott Base or Graham Bell Island [which for those who don't holiday or do billion dollar deals there selling fissile materials to the KGB, is in Franz Joseph Land in the Barents Sea! Where's that you ask? Good grief, I hope Luke Skyhero knows! It is north of Russia.]
There are plenty of dumb business people who ride the company as though money is no object. They tend to go broke sooner or later. Usually sooner because the same attitude they apply to a phone is the attitude they apply to the billion dollar deal and they don't get the best deal. Cell phone costs are significant in the business world and they are one of the items watched for excess. Most of the calls are actually to Mum or for much more prosaic purposes than billion dollar SkyHero deals. Nevertheless, the service MUST cover their area of operation. As Mr Adrenaline pointed out, nearly everyone will be 100% satisfied with the coverage which Globalstar can provide.
More important will be the clunkiness of the handset.
As far as what you called the half-baked bent pipe Globalstar system, I assume this will be some sort of plastic tube, and the signal goes in one end and is reflected around the inside of the pipe and comes out the other end towards the receiver. Simple but effective. If they use recycled plastic, that would have some marketing cachet too. Is Iridium ecologically correct?
So far, I like what Bernie has done! I think he deserves a real SkyHero award [once the system is working of course]. Even a lunch more expensive than a Globalstar phone.
Sorry about the Iridium market capitalisation. Okay, 8% of Iridium is held by Iridium World Communications so total Iridium market capitalisation is $6bn, which is what the system is going to cost? Yes? Or was it only $5bn? Anyway, Globalstar is being rated higher by investors in terms of the ratio of market capitalisation to construction cost. As you say, this could easily be due to foolish penny investors. But they might also be right and Globalstar is a better bet.
Tediously yours,
Mqurice
[Don't forget, Iridium DOESN'T provide total coverage. When Luke Skyhero is doing a billion dollar deal in office in downtown India where they don't have cellphone service, his TDMA Iridium system will swing into gear, but his Iridium signal won't get out of the building and he will get the dreaded "no service available" sign. Globalstar's wonderful CDMA signal will bounce off all the reinforcing steel and struggle to the sky, giving better coverage than the "universal" Iridium system. That's my theory anyway. Maybe both only work with blue sky, or stars, above. I'm not sure on that. CDMA generally gives better building penetration.] |
