AJ, It's interesting how this stream has flowed from how rich everyone was going to get from launching any kind of satellite at all into some sort of orbit, to how few people are really going to use them and how little they will pay and they will only want the service if the phones are dinky nice like modern cellphones.
I'm reveling in the price per minute arguments after a couple of years of wailing in the wind that Iridium shouldn't launch and Globalstar should be pricing their minutes in proportion to demand. Which means cheap to start and dearer as the service fills.
At least there is still a chance that ICO and Ellipso will cancel their redundant systems before they lose a similar amount of money as Iridium.
I don't blame you for bailing out. The Globalstar story will be one of great success, but it will arrive more slowly than December. Give it 3 or 5 years and it will be unstoppable. But until then, I fear there will be as many downs as ups.
The standby time is so rotten that they'll only be used for calling out when in places like Outer Mongolia. Many places don't have the right voltage recharge services. Until Globalstar handsets get power demand really low or methanol fuel cell batteries on board, the use of them will be severely limited by power supply.
China phone boxes and in India too, should form a big demand. Yes, people are seriously poor there, but I've watched expensive, attended, STD phone boxes flat out with a LOT of money flowing in from a queue of people in India.
Maurice
PS: I've issued a Fatwah on the Dow, thanks to the price of oil being up to $16 from a brief low of $8 last December. OPEC managed to cut their production [they say] so prices will rise and demand will shrink. Combine all the ramifications of doubled oil price with an all time high Dow of 10,900 and it seems to be time for mid-summer blues. Once the run gets under way, it will take a bit of stopping, so my guess is a good 20% clunk down to 8099 in the next couple of months [probably about 10 June] with a several months long bumpy bottom.
OPEC will be chastened by a rapid drop in demand, their revenues will come under pressure, their debts will escalate, Saudi Arabia will get nervous and the taps will be eased and the prices drop. Meanwhile, back in the USA, Alan Green$pan will allow an easing of the old SuperD tap so that the irrational exuberance doesn't turn to even more irrational funk, and things will rebalance. Then away it will all roar again after Y2K is a fizzer.
That's my theory anyway. So you might be happy to be on the sidelines in a few weeks [or sooner the way Iridium is going].
Dow 16,000 Feb 2002
Meanwhile, has anyone noticed what an astronomical amount of paper profit the Hong Kong government has made on their huge stock market purchases when the Hang Seng hung down at 6,000 or so last year in the 50 year panic of 1998? That all started with the Zenit crash in Russia and Long Term Capital Management [a GSTRF shareholder] getting their asset backing a bit too weak for their lenders' liking. |
