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

To: Rocket Scientist who wrote (5952)	7/22/1999 8:38:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29987

Globalstar cost vs Iridium cost I trust the estimates of capacity, being 11bn for G* vs 1bn for I. I trust the breakeven figures we've been given of about 8c per minute for G and $1.20 for I* apart from a few details such as whether gateways are included etc which won't make much difference. Those figures are "near enough" although not precise. I* is now reduced to a cost per minute of their operating cost and too bad about return on capital which they are not going to get and all are agreed on that aspect. Maybe they can get down to 20c per minute on that basis, but they have got a cash flow problem before they can get the system loaded, so to get that 20c per minute for 1bn minutes returning them a piffling $200m before operating costs is too hard. Somebody is going to have to put in a LOT of capital to try to bridge that gap. Not me! Not even if the constellation is given to me for free. I* is doomed and I don't believe they can even cover their operating costs. My guess is that Motorola made a big bundle from the deal and will milk it until it keels over. Globalstar can cut their price a LOT to boost sales and still fund the second, new, improved, large antennae, small handset, higher data rate Constellation2 in 3 or 5 years. Computers with a half-life of months rather than decades should not be floating around in space. Space switching is fun, but not the best way of moving a call around the world. Maurice