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

To: John Stichnoth who wrote (6907)	8/27/1999 5:41:00 AM
From: limtex	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

JS - 1. I the G* sats are not Geosynchronous right? 2. OK if thats the case the entire constellation circles the Earth continuoulsy and therefore while you are talking the sat you started with hasmoved on and been replaced seemlessly with another one or possibly more depending how long you spoke for - right? 3. If thats the case then presumaby the area of coverage on the Earths surface ( the Gateway unless I've got it wrong again) is not exactly described by a cicle but by a 'band'the hight of which is the diameter of the circle that everyone has been talking about - right? OK I'm goign to have a look at the G* site to see if I can glean anything. One thing is however becoming very clear to me and that is that there is a much bigger market for G* than I had previuosly believed possible and partly, oddly enough, I believe that this is just because the terrestrial mobile services have got so pervasive. Many mobile customers just won't accept being without service today. I just doesn't suit our lifestyles any more. For instance any time my wife and I go on a break to Central America OK there are phones but you know you are going to get ripped off and the service is goingto be one of those "we will put the call through ansd call you as soon as it is ready" people will pay a reliable and reasonable service not to have to put up with that nonsense. I can't wait for G*. Best regards, L

To: John Stichnoth who wrote (6907)	8/27/1999 5:05:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 29987

Let's start with the world being round rather than flat and that customers buy more when things are cheap [yes, I've heard the stories about how putting the price up increases sales in certain odd circumstances where customers want status or think they can trust the high-priced one]. Then we should think of these satellites, gateways and handsets as shining lights and these lights go pretty much in a straight line. Radio waves are confusing to most people and in the realm of magic for all [we sort of know what they do but have little idea what they are], but we see light all day so have a better idea of what it does; shadows, bright, dim, the spectrum [as shown in a rainbow where you can bid for the blue region in the C Block auction and that penetrates things better than the shorter wavelength red - hay, that might be why the sky is blue or maybe the whole sky is in the blue part of a rainbow caused by the blue light bending better around the dust, water and stuff in the air, so you get the red at sunset]. So, if your handset can see a Globalstar satellite then they can talk to each other. If at the same time, the satellite and a gateway can see each other, then hey presto, we have contact and a call to somewhere can be made. The satellites are zooming around the world [which is round, not flat] and they take just over 100 minutes to go round. So if you make a call that lasts 100 minutes, there will have been 6 satellites handle the call. Or more likely 12 because the satellites in another plane of satellites will have been keeping an eye on the caller too, though not actually handling the call. Here's where to read about the satellite constellation: globalstar.com The gateways are like big upside down umbrellas with boxes of electronics underneath and optical fibre going off to the telephone system are around the world, point at the satellites [they have up to five upside-down umbrellas, which are the eyes of the gateway]. The umbrellas are really called antennas or antennae in real English and they follow the satellites as they zoom over the sky [in about quarter of an hour]. These gateways are sitting way out in the open, away from other radio signals hopefully, with a horizon of 180 degrees, meaning there are no obstructions such as mountains, buildings, trees and stuff. So they can see satellites right down to the horizon. But handsets are used all over the place and don't have the grunt of a gateway to send a bright signal. Handsets are more often obstructed by taller things than gateways are and can usually only see satellites which are higher in the sky. So the coverage area of a satellite for handsets is smaller than for gateways - at the edge of a satellite's handset coverage area, you might or might not be able to make a call because of stuff getting in the way, such as buildings, trees, huge rainclouds. Also, the antennae on the satellites are different for the gateways and handsets, and the area they each cover is different, so even if a handset is out in the desert with wide horizon, the coverage might not be the same and I guess that's also a reason for the handset circle being smaller. You can see a picture of the satellites at the bottom of this page: globalstar.com The more satellites there are, the more likely one is able to see both a handset and a gateway. The more there are, the less the average distance a handset has to send a signal so the less power is needed and the longer the battery will last and the smaller the aerial on the handset can be. Yous need to get a globe out and imagine a gateway near Auckland. If there was one there, then somebody with a handset on the beach in Sydney could make a call most of the time to that gateway via satellites half way across the Tasman Sea. They could do the same in New Caledonia and on around New Zealand in pretty much a circle [though the earth is not perfectly round so it's not a perfect circle]. Trouble is, the gateway in Auckland and the gateway in Dubbo would argue over who gets to handle the call and since the world is divvied up to Service Providers, that call would have to go through the Dubbo gateway, even if the Auckland Service Provider was offering a real deal [20c per minute for a year to boost sales]. The system would know where the handset is from GPS. Suppose the handset in Sydney was obstructed from a satellite which could see the Dubbo gateway but could see a satellite which could see the Auckland gateway, I suppose the call would be refused. That is not likely to make customers happy. The Globalstar system is not designed for making customers happy [well, other than more or less and good enough]. Meanwhile, ICO seems to be in trouble. That means Globalstar will have the market to themselves. Even with gross blundering, high minute prices and a poorly run system [no CURRENT PRICE IS... service for example, to maximize capacity, customer satisfaction and profit] Globalstar should do well. How's that? Get the picture? That's the one I see. Maurice