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The comments Oran makes are surprising. Surely they have been aware of developments in Iridium and Globalstar for years and have had a good idea of what they could offer military people. Oran says they are just starting to understand the vast capabilities of Iridium?!! Maybe he means just confirming the expectations they'd been given.
If they like Iridium, they'll LOVE Globalstar. Much much cheaper, better voice quality. I suppose so - reports on Iridium seem to include quite a few quality and other problems - maybe only 5% or 10%, but that is a LOT when you are trying to get some fighter cover in a position in Iraq or Kosovo. But Globalstar has a much lower data rate than 13 kbps terrestrial cdmaOne, so maybe not as good quality.
Maybe like the super rich businessmen who don't know how much Iridium costs and don't care, the military will be the same. The taxpayer can just cough up some more money. Now that Iridium is up and running, I suppose the hordes of businessmen who are allegedly indifferent to the cost have all bought a handset and Iridium is nearly full.
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"Anyone who uses or hears about the capabilities of this phone wants one," said 1st Lt. Timothy Oran, chief of information operation concepts at the space battlelab.
The Space Battlelab does not make decisions about fielding these units, but it does report on the capabilities, flexibility and limitations of the technology, then makes recommendations to the Air Staff who does make the fielding decisions.
Although the phones might sound expensive at nearly $3,400 each, with airtime that averages $5 a minute, the DOD stands to save a lot of money for the capability it would get.
"We are just starting to understand the vast capabilities this system may offer," said Oran. "As the Iridium and other commercial systems come on-line, we will have to rethink the way we do business."
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I suppose Iridium at $5 per minute is better than Globalstar at $1 per minute if it is still in a warehouse in Rome and there are no rockets being launched. How much do you have to pay a politician in the USA to stop a competitor's TSA agreement being signed? I bet it's more than Chinese fees. Look how much Bernie paid and he STILL can't get a TSA.
Is it possible that Motorola bribed somebody to hold up a TSA? Just kidding, but truth is stranger than fiction too often. How do we know that Globalstar is not hostage to some anti-Schwartz/Democratic functionary in the TSA department. Let's publish this TSA Parchment on the Web and see what it says. The Russians can see it so it can't be very secret.
Personally, I think the USA would be a lot better off discussing TSA Parchments in the Senate than legal definitions of 'sexual relations' in the context of consenting adults. No wonder the average American outside the Beltway doesn't think much of politicians.
Americans are giving Clinton the thumbs up because they can see there was no big deal [from the country's point of view] and the economy is swinging along fine and the Senate should spend time fixing up Technology Safeguard Agreements and ITU 3G CDMA arguments with the rest of the world. While they argue over Clinton's libido and willingness to spout out the details to the public in a court hearing, L M Ericsson, SETI, ITU, NTT, Nokia, EU, China, Koreans and all the rest of the gang are fixin' to make off with the crown jewels.
Can the impeachment, though I'm sure they and the news media are having a lot of fun with it, and get back to work!!!
On Wall Street panics, I don't know that there is any big rush to get into Globalstar right now. There can always been another dip down in the Dow/Nasdaq, carrying GSTRF down too. Of course I'm not selling, so I don't really think there is going to be a major decline from $18.
Maurice
[The TSA geeks would no doubt say "Oh, we can't do that. [Publish the TSA on the Web]. Things are at a very delicate stage of negotiation, we have to have three more lunches, two more first class international trips and a week or two in some nice Moscow hotels, followed by four committee meetings and there are implications for national security too don't forget."] |
