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

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (7019)	8/30/1999 5:24:00 PM
From: JGoren	Respond to of 29987

More on ICO bankruptcy: totaltele.com

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (7019)	8/30/1999 5:30:00 PM
From: Rocket Scientist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

I was looking around the GMPCS web site, looking at their alternatives to G. They have various flavors of INMARSAT, that seem to start at about 3K$ to purchase. The airtime rate (fully terminated) runs about 3.75$/minute. I have no idea how many of these things they sell, of course. More than a thousand, less than 50 thousand a year I'd guess. Now along comes G enabling GMPCS to offer a service at 50% of Inmarsat h/w cost, much lighter and simpler to use, no voice latency and the per minute price, again, 50% of the Inmarsat rate. Clearly a better product, and at 50% of the cost, and we're complaining it's too expensive! Conventional cell phones are selling at upwards of 200M units per year. G* needs 0.5% of that volume to be very successful. Clearly, it needs to attract the users for whom the value of connectivity (individually or collectively) is highest. I think Maurice's analysis is flawed, because in many circumstances and for many people the information exchanged during a short phone call can make or break the results of countless man hours of effort spent off the phone. By Gs own analysis, 99% of the world's population either doesn't need or can't afford G service. The problem will be finding the 1% that do and can. IMO no one knows what the magic price is that will maximize G* RoI, and that price is likely to vary from region to region and by user type, anyway. It seems to me the G* set up provides plenty of incentive to the SPs and retailers to find the "right" price pretty quickly. Frankly, it will happen faster if Irid is still in business, but is likely to happen soon enough, either way.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (7019)	8/31/1999 4:00:00 AM
From: tero kuittinen	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 29987

It's the lack of urgency that seems so puzzling, Maurice. Airtouch refuses to comment on international call rates, for example. That 1,50 dollars is the price of one minute within USA. They didn't even speculate what the USA-Europe call rate might be when I called them up. So the "marketing strategy is in place" and over 100 000 handsets should be available by year's end - but the biggest operator will not tell putative customers the price of international calls? The 40 million dollar ad budget by next summer is another mystery. Iridium couldn't create interest with 140 million bucks. That was when the buzz on satellite phones wass still positive and there were news items on CNN and BBC on the service launch. Now the typical headline on the topic contains puns on orbital decay. That's a tough climate for a budget ad campaign. I know this may sound like a peripheral issue - but the key part of Nokia's strategy in selling the 8810 for 1'000 dollars was the adamant line on price cuts. Nokia made very clear from the start that there wouldn't be any substantial discounting. There hasn't been. That was important. The only way to sell a luxury product is to convince the consumers that they won't see the item in the 50% bargain bin next month. Let's face it - the 1'250 dollars Airtouch cited as the firm handset price places Globalstar in the luxury item category. Telling a leading global business magazine that these handsets could well be sold at 50% discount (nudge, wink) is another tactical move from Twilight Zone. Off topic. Michael - why don't you show me a quote of where I predicted the "demise" of CDMA? I can show you several quotes of claiming that CDMA will be a global niche standard among second generation digital standards. Which it will be, according to all leading US investment banks - average forecast is for about 20% global share around 2004. That's the definition of "niche" Ms. Aaltonen taught me in the Tikkakoski High. Whose English is the problem here? Last December I wrote that Qualcomm is a mystery - it could go to 140 dollars. You know of many telecom commentators who said as much in 1998? Share with me. And BTW - the fastest growing digital standard in the world is now TDMA. According to both Merrill Lynch and Strategis. Both infrasturcture and subscriber base. So where did I go wrong in predicting that the growth estimates of TDMA-based standards have been low-balled? Tero

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (7019)	8/31/1999 1:55:00 PM
From: Rocket Scientist	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29987

Maurice, I would have responded to this post earlier, but I had to take the bus today, because, using your methodology, I realized I couldn't afford to put gas in my car. I was all set to do it, even started the pump, when I realized the damn thing was sucking money away from at the rate of 4$/minute! 240$/hour! After taxes! I'd have to make a million bucks a year before taxes to afford that! So I took a long bus ride gazing sadly out the window at all the millionaires (quillionaires?) riding around in their gas guzzlers. OK, that didn't really happen, because I realized it's a little absurd to extrapolate "bursty" expenditures like pumping gas or talking on a G* phone as if you were making them continuously. If all activities were analyzed that way, there'd be a lot less champagne and airplane tickets sold, among other worthwhile economic activity. IMHO, a better approach to analyze G* use in developed countries is from the point of view of the employers of the user, keeping in mind that G* only anticipates about 7 minutes average use per business day. In the US an average employee costs, counting his salary, benefits, overhead, etc, upwards of 40$/hour. 7 minutes a day on a G* phone is 10$, or about 3% of the employees cost to the employer. The employer has to assess, will I get 3% more productivity out the employee by keeping him connected during his working day (and, of course, are there cheaper alternatives where that employee is working) Taking into account the demographics and cellular coverage in the US, I don't find it hard to believe the answer will be yes in a 100-200K cases. I'm not trying to defend a particular airtime price. I have no better idea what the "right" price for a minute of G* usage is than I do the "right" price of the stock (actually, I DO know the right price of the stock, unfortunately, the market disagrees with me.) I do believe that whatever "published" price Airtouch goes forward with will be the starting point for downward negotiation with high volume customers, who will demand (and get) discounts for early adaption, guaranteed minimum levels of usage, off-peak usage, long term commitments and god knows what else. Also, I disagree with you that it's that easy to raise prices once demand is established-but that's a subject for another posting.