Hi Ramsey, I'm anwering your Globalstar question over here!
Globalstar won't take over from land based systems other than in rural areas because in cities, the base stations can be only 10 km or less away from a handset, so power requirements are enormously less, so battery life will be miles better. Also, the cost of building satellites is going to remain way more expensive than base stations in cities, but not more expensive than base stations in rural areas.
Globalstar per minute wholesale prices are going to be about 45 cents per minute. NextWave Telecom is going to be wholesaling at some price around 2 cents per minute or something I guess. I don't really know. Maybe 5 cents. So city folk won't pay the extra. But they WILL have dual mode Globalstar/local handsets, so when in cities they'll use the local service. When rural, they'll use Globalstar.
Probably people will have two phones with the same number. A small nifty little city phone and a grunty big rural phone.
Iridium is a dog!! Too expensive and technically difficult. Ericsson maybe has a share in Iridium, I don't know.
Maurice
Subject: Qualcomm - Coming Into Buy Range
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To: Philip Merryman (270 )
From: Ramsey Su Dec 5 1996 8:55AM EST
Reply #276 of 290
Philip, not that Ericsson ever asked me but what should their long range strategy be?
It is clear that GSM is not going to dominate the world, the way they did in Europe. If I understand the current situation correctly, LU and MOT can go both ways. How is Ericsson going to compete against them in the infrastructure business?
The PCS war has started in the US. Sprint has temporary set back but PrimeCo is going full speed. On the GSM side, there are Omnipoint and PacBell. Any other major groups? Looks like CDMA is clear winner here. Digital in Europe has to be considered saturated when compared to the US, not to mention the huge Asian markets. What is Ericsson's strategy here?
Maurice, you will have to help me on the following thought. QCOM is not only well positioned in the CDMA arena, they are already preparing for the next generation via the alliance with Globalstar and LOR. Will land based cell sites be obsolete one day? In ten years? Twenty years? Why would you need these land based sites when you have satelites overhead? MOT has iridium. What is Ericsson's strategy in this area?
In summary, I am more convinced than ever that QCOM somehow put themselves in a no lose position. Just think about all the recent developments. Even the "bad new" regarding Sprint will probably benefit QCOM. A 3 months delay may take some pressure off the $1.7 billion backlog while Nortel is taking the blame.
This Ericsson "tactical" suit just demonstrates how paranoid they and other competitors must be now.
On the other hand, it is winter in Scandanavia and brains may be frozen. They came to sunny San Diego, saw all the QCOM engineers tanned and working in T-shirts. That will piss anyone off enough to sue.
Ramsey |
