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

To: The_Guru_00 who wrote (6780)	8/24/1999 9:46:00 AM
From: Jon Koplik	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Re : business numbers now (possibly) being similar for I* and G* (courtesy of I* equityholders being wiped out). Even if everything you say is exactly correct (and I am not sure if that is true ...), we are still left with the simple truth that the technology of the Iridium system eats. (I have confirmed from earlier posts that one can get away with using the word "eats" on SI without having the post deleted). I am not an electrical engineer, but from reading numerous things written by those who know, it seems undeniable that Iridium really blew it when they decided to use TDMA and also have all sorts of high tech stuff "up there" instead of on the ground (like G*). Jon.

To: The_Guru_00 who wrote (6780)	8/24/1999 1:48:00 PM
From: Timothy R. Tierney	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

"So I* comes out of bankruptcy, continues to market the phone properly (and maybe a much smaller phone), and a new image campaign (remember the Nextel disaster - which is now the darling of Wall Street). How can Globalstar compete? I predict problems similar or worse than I, except for the fact that the old man Schwartz will have no problem risking the viability of Loral to save his swan song." And while I is doing all of these things to compete...G* is standing still....You need to acct for G*'s activities...in the future.

To: The_Guru_00 who wrote (6780)	8/24/1999 6:05:00 PM
From: Rocket Scientist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Guru 00-I'm prepared to stipulate that the operating costs of Irid and G* will be similar, assuming IRID converts bonds into equity and Mot agrees to dramatic cuts in its O&M contract. I'd also stipulate that the G* phones are essentially the same in mass/size as Irids. There's some anecdotal evidence that the G* voice quality is better and the phones more convenient to operate, but let's discount that as coming from anonymous, biased, sources. Allowing the above, G* still has at least three decisive advantages: 1. According to SEC filings the G* system has 50% more life and 7X more capacity than Iridium. 2. G* has real service providers, well incentivized to move the product. If we take accept 1.50 per minute as the projected retail price, 1.00/minute goes to the gateway operator and retailer, of which 0.75$ is probably pure profit, once the system is loaded. (Gateways cost about 20M$ to build, maybe 5M$/year to operate.) 3. G* and Loral/Qualcomm interests are almost perfectly aligned, as contrasted with Irid/Mot, plus G* has Bernard Schwartz (OK, that's a fourth reason) BTW, G* also supports paging. Although it's true that paging units haven't been announced as yet in any concrete way, I don't expect that to be "competitive advantage" for Iridium for any length of time.

To: The_Guru_00 who wrote (6780)	8/25/1999 10:52:00 PM
From: Drew Williams	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

<<So I* comes out of bankruptcy, continues to market the phone properly (and maybe a much smaller phone), and a new image campaign (remember the Nextel disaster - which is now the darling of Wall Street). How can Globalstar compete?>> I've been on vacation the last few weeks, and I return to find pretty much everyone on the thread down in the dumps. I'm trying to catch up (but I think I'll have to skip that last couple of thousand posts on the Qualcomm thread.) Anyway, I expect Iridium will come out of bankruptcy, at least for a while, but will still not succeed because of unfixable structural mistakes made in building the system. It is obvious that Staino and company thought a lot about the "hard" stuff, the engineering problems (even if we can argue with their conclusions,) but they never thought much about the "soft" stuff (note, I do not say "easy." Good marketing is rarely easy.) In short, who are the potential satphone customers and what is the best way to get phones in their hands and get them to start burning minutes. I think this will be one for the textbooks on how not to bring a new product to market. It has been my opinion that GlobalStar made two key decisions early on that evidence they did think about these things. 1) GlobalStar kept the smarts on the ground where they can get at them for service and upgrades. 2) They ensured aggressive marketing (the recent lack of activity by Airtouch etc. notwithstanding) by tying the financial fortunes of GlobalStar's marketing partners to GlobalStar's own success or lack therof. Not only will GlobalStar's partners make big money if GlobalStar succeeds (the reward) but they will also lose big money if GlobalStar does not (the punishment.) That possibility of losing one's shirt is quite an incentive. On the other hand, while Iridium's marketing partners did stand to make some money if Iridium succeeded, if Iridium failed they would just not make money. Ho hum. Boy am I -- yawn -- motivated. Rah rah zzzzzz. Right now everyone here is in kind of a shell-shocked mode after a year of Zenit crashing into the Siberian Tundra, the Chinese espionage scandal, the Iridium bankruptcy, the great Hagfish invasion of New Zealand last April, and more. I think we should also try to remember the basic reasons why satphone systems are being brought into existence. In no particular order: 1) There are large areas of some relatively affluent countries (The United States, Canada, Australia, etc.) where wireline service is impossible and conventional cellular/PCS wireless is impractical or "Swiss Cheese." GlobalStar will work there, and enough people can afford it. 2) There are even larger parts of less affluent countries (China, pretty much anywhere in Africa, India, etc.) where most people have never ever made a phone call and could not if they wanted to, because the existing infrastructure is so bad and not getting much better any time soon. GlobalStar will work there, too, more than likely through the GlobalStar phone booth idea. 3) There really are people for whom the announced cost of this phone (or, frankly, Iridium's) is simply not an issue worth discussing. It is irrelevant. Even trivial. Some of these include the military, emergency rescue teams (I will soon begin starting to raise money to put a GlobalStar phone in our local fire department's ambulance and rescue vehicles,) anyone who travels extensively for a living, and on and on. A large part of the reason that these people have not jumped on Iridium's bandwagon is simply that they are not willing to invest in a technology that may not be there next year when a more financially viable alternative technology, GlobalStar, is around the corner. I believe GlobalStar and their partners will find a way, but it may not be pretty for a while. Thanks to Qualcomm's success (and Zenit, etc.,) my GlobalStar investment is no longer as large a percentage of my portfolio as it once was. However, it is my opinion that if GlobalStar can grow subscriber numbers anywhere near plan . . . Well, let's just say I'm not selling. Those Q dollars mean I can afford to be patient. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. If that's boosterism, so be it.