Paul,
Not sure question is addressed to me (I haven't been referred to as gentlemean in a long time) but I'll respond since I had been griping about what I saw as a lack of progress in implementing the rollout. There had been little apparent progress until the recent USOne acquisition. Since March, only 3 new markets had been opened even though financing had been secured. The company was making progress but, because of what I see as its enormous potential, I sort of felt like the parent of a gifted child who doesn't apply himself and gets B minuses on his report card.
I've learned over the past year that this business is not just a matter of slapping up two radios. Opening a new market and receiving meaningful revenues for a facilities based wireless clec requires a sales force, the acquisition of roof rights, wiring target buildings, establishing hub sites and installing switches. This is one reason that Teligent is two years behind Winstar. The last I knew Winstar was only in two (San Francisco and Denver) of the seven markets where we now have new switches. I would guess that those two markets, along with Houston, Baltimore, and Detroit, will be "On-line" in the first quarter and contributing significant revenues. I won't count the other five switches until we have a sales force in those cities and have our own customers using those switches. Probably the second quarter is the earliest those markets will contribute meaningfully.
Twenty fully operational switched markets by the end of next June will be excellent progress but I also hope to see us opening additional markets in the first half of next year for more switch launches during the second half of 1998.
Enough bitching. There were two matters touched on in the conference call that I found very positive. The first was the revenue growth in the New Media division. It seems to me that this division is, and in the future will, contribute significantly to the bottom line. It also provides an "edge" to the sales force that helps Winstar differentiate itself from the compitition. I don't believe anyone is presently giving any value to this area of the business. As it continues to grow it should receive more recognition and help support the stock price.
The second matter I found to be important was the new markets that point to multi-point opens up. I've been a holder of this stock for over two years and initially felt that the company would prosper if it merely got a small share of the market it was targeting (buildings of 100,000 sq/ft and up). With the new radios, Winstar will be able to profitably service buildings as small as 25,000 sq/ft. This is a huge expansion of the addressable market for Winstar's services and if they obtain just a small percentage of that additional business . . .
Still long, still positive, still griping, and still waiting on that next announcement.
Best wishes,
Ed |
