Just to expand on this one step further, I believe the emotional issues combine with the relative economic prosperity of the most developed nations to ensure that GlobalStar will meet its sales goals.
We want seamless service that only satellite phone systems like GlobalStar can provide, and we can afford to pay for it.
Back in the eighties I paid nearly $1,300.00 for an AMPS "transportable" phone about the size of an unabridged dictionary. I hardwired it into my wife's car, and it stayed there (well, stayed in a succession of three cars) until the handset cord died two years ago and it was cheaper to replace it with a handheld. I bought a second, similar model a few months later and put it into my own car, where it stayed until my new employer gave me a handheld last August.
We claimed to use these phones for business, and sometimes we actually did that. The real reason was much simpler: we felt safer knowing that if the car broke down, we could call for help. In that time, she called me once to fix a flat tire and once to dig her out of a snowdrift.
Luckily, neither of these incidents happened in Chester Springs, along the path I drive to work every day, since there is no service there.
For me, the real reasons for having a mobile phone have not changed. And the cellular system is still made of Swiss cheese. So, it is my intention to put a GlobalStar phone in her hands as soon as possible.
Is that rational? It is to me.
Is it emotional? Surely.
By the way, I just found out that half of all Americans are smarter than average, too. But I would not take too much comfort in that. |
