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

To: David Wiggins who wrote (7097)	9/1/1999 2:55:00 AM
From: djane	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 29987

8/27-9/2/99 SF Business Times. AirTouch connects globe to wireless phone service amcity.com (not online yet) Excerpts: Vodafone AirTouch Satellite Services will debut its long-awaited global wireless telephone services next month via Globalstar, a telecommunications network using satellites to make wireless connections worldwide. The wireless telephone service will be available in September to several hundred AirTouch employees and distributors who will test the system in North America and give the company feedback before a "soft launch" in November. The full palette of wireless services is expected to debut early next year to customers worldwide, but will not launch until flaws are ironed out, company officials said. AirTouch is especially cautious about the debut of the new technology in light of problems faced by Iridium, its Washington, D.C.-based competitor, which recently filed for bankruptcy after satellite failures and poor service forced customers to flee. "We are eager to go into commercial service but won't launch until our network and distribution system quality is high," said Mike Kerr, vice president and general manager for AirTouch Satellite Services in Walnut Creek. The once-heralded promise of global wireless phone service has fallen to earth lately. The system's equipment is cumbersome -- Iridium's oversized phone is derisively referred to as the "brick" -- and phone calls are expensive -- up to $10 dollars a minute compared to rates of less than $1 a minute on a traditional cellular system. AirTouch officials claim their system differs from Iridium's because it uses satellite technology in conjunction with the existing network of land lines to make the connection. Both companies now sell phones more like cellular phones. The article lists the "Companies forming the Globalstar Consortium" and states the "Vodaphone AirTouch Globalstar footprint" as the US, Canada, Mexico, Caribbean, South Africa, Namibia, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, Botswana, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, UK, Greece, Malta and Australia.