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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Globalstar Telecommunications Limited GSAT -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (5951)	7/22/1999 6:13:00 PM
From: Rocket Scientist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

I have a problem with this statement: <Iridium was stuck with an expensive system. Globalstar has a cheap one. That's the difference.> It's true that G's cost per minute is cheaper, IF you fully load both systems at "consensus" capacity estimates of 10B cm/y vs 1.5B, and/or believe G system life is 1.5X Irid's (consistent with company filings). But, the fixed operating costs for debt service and O&M for the two systems ought to be very similar, as far as I can tell. They both borrowed about the same amount of money and Mot's O&M contract is either an outrageous rip-off of IRID, or we're underestimating G*s oprtg costs (because the GW's cover some of the burden?)

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (5951)	7/22/1999 6:50:00 PM
From: Serendipity	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Good post with some creative thinking. Maurice, consider the functionality please? And the affordability index next. Of the 6 billion people about 1.5 billion people live in places where Globalstar has not gone public with either who their service providers are or when service will commence. This includes countries in South Asia and Asia-Pac excluding China and Korea. Plus look at Africa. When does G* even plan on commencing service there? The person that can afford a Globalstar phone is not likely to need one coz he does not go into remote areas. How often has Bernard Schwartz needed access to a Globalstar phone?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (5951)	7/23/1999 9:05:00 AM
From: tero kuittinen	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 29987

That was suspiciously balanced commentary... who are you and what have you done to Maurice? I hope it was something cruel and unusual. It's hard to argue Globalstar wouldn't look a lot more appealing with the "possible" pricing scenarios presented in this thread. But it's very hard to figure out why Airtouch isn't choosing to opt for an aggressive strategy. If they could turn a profit at subsidizing the handsets below 1'000 dollars and slashing the call rates well below 1 dollar - why do they seem intent on copying the Iridium pricing plan? If their current pact with BAM breaks down, Airtouch will be forced to spend 2-3 billion dollars in building new East Coast coverage. Are they really going to take a simultaneous gamble on Globalstar? The current pricing plan does not point to that direction. It does look as if Iridium has found a sugar daddy in the US government. The military can easily keep Iridium afloat if it chooses to do so. And that's the kind of direct subsidy that can be pretty tough on competition. It would be pure Motorola to avoid making any tough decisions on Iridium - that's the ostrich strategy they have chosen to deal with the paging headache. They can limp to 40 000 subs by Christmas, then stagger to 100 000 during next year. Wouldn't that be enough to bleed the rest of the satellite firms dry? Tero