Yes Valueman, often limited to only one satellite and also the battery capacity and photovoltaic system needs to be managed so that it is sold to the most valuable subscriber, who might be waiting for some electron volts a bit further around the orbit.
The rockbottom price would be all external charges, such as renting space on fibre, local telcos, government taxes, cellular or whatever. But after that, the busyness of the system should define the price.
Even if Globalstar do what I suggest and customers come flooding in, they would be limited by the rate at which handsets could be produced, which would be over a period of a year or two. Globalstar tweakers might like to take their time loading the system - bad luck for them, they'll have to work 24 hours and lots of them to ensure it does work at capacity.
Most calls would be pretty much local. A call from a yacht off San Diego would go up to a satellite, down to the earth station, through the local wiring to the house overlooking the ocean or to the office downtown to tell them that they are just closing a sale with a customer. A Globalstar to Globalstar call would be yacht to satellite, to earth station, straight back up to the same satellite, down to the other Globalstar handset in the other yacht being told "Starboard you bastards!!"
So no problem with your comments - it just means the "other" charges need to go on first, then the Globalstar busyness charges. If Globalstar negotiates other line charges properly, it will still be extremely cheap. Fibre is free! Near enough.
There wouldn't be complexity from the subscriber's point of view. The earth station simply states the current price on the handset depending on the busyness of the system in that area. If flat out, the algorithm would put a higher price on it. If quiet, a low price. For the first year, it would always be a low price. With other telco charges as a baseline. The subscriber could dial the number they want, and the price per minute would display and they'd push "SEND" if happy with the price. Easy peasy!
Maurice |
