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Technology Stocks : George Gilder - Forbes ASAP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bernard Levy who wrote (1993)	8/18/1999 8:08:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 5853

Thanks Bernard. I haven't read much at all on WLGS but eliminating base stations sounds like a good idea. GG says that computational power and cheap bandwidth will be big time in future, so VDMA sounds right up that alley. Base stations are civil engineering. That's expensive. Handsets are cheap circuitry. I can't see how base stations would go away altogether because there would need to be a drain down which to send the signals and they can't all go through a narrow pipe either - you couldn't connect one town to another by using somebody's handset on a nearby hill. But in cities, I can see the number of basestations could be hugely reduced. The processing power would need to be big to keep track of the GPS location of all handsets. But processing power is the easy part apparently and doubling every 18 months or suchlike. At the moment there is much less than 90% reliability and business people depend on existing sytems. There are coverage gaps everywhere. Systems get overloaded and calls can't be made at peak times. On the battery power, yes, Globalstar has got a BIG problem with limited power. There aren't any fuel cells yet. In 10 years, when VDMA is more likely, I guess there will be lots of fuel cells for portable electronics. In 5 years, Globalstar will have another constellation with bigger antennae. With methanol or ethanol fuel cells, Globalstar handsets will then have no problem with battery life. Even without fuel cells, they should be not too bad. It's hopeless right now = only several hours standby time. So people can't go away from a recharger and have their phone turned on to receive calls [in remote locations]. I'm with you on Blimps in the sky. I get annoyed enough with my satellite web connection packing up in the rain. So now have ADSL which is fine. Having no phone service on a windy day doesn't seem good. I wouldn't want Alexander in charge of my money. I take it you agree with my other comments on spectrum savings and power consumption reduction. Thaks if you can help. I need to buy VDMA, flee it or ignore it. Maurice