To: Jeff Vayda who wrote (8229 ) 11/8/1999 2:30:00 PM From: Maurice Winn Read Replies (4) | Respond to of 29987
<On the retail side, per-minute rates will generally be between $1.30-$1.50 within a subscriber's home country, $1.50-$1.99 within a region (e.g. Europe), and no more than $2.99 inter-regionally. Assuming more calls will be made in the latter two categories, Globalstar's average per-minute rate should be about 48 cents. According to Globalstar, subscribers will use the service anywhere from 140 to 160 minutes per month. We use a range of 130-170 minutes of use (MOU) per month to be on the somewhat safe side. More minutes used per subscriber could mean lower retail, and possibly, lower wholesale rates. The biggest wild card in the revenue calculation is the number of subscribers. For both revenue and investor perceptions, the number of subscribers could make or break Globalstar. > Good grief! What a revelation: "the number of customers could make or break Globalstar". Somehow, Globalstar and even these analysts seem to live in a world of suspended animation where icky earthbound customers are nothing but some balance sheet mirage. The ONLY thing which matters is how many customers sign up and pay enough money to keep the whole show on the road [need new figures of speech for in space]. Okay, to keep the whole show in orbit. What does the following mean? <...More minutes used per subscriber could mean lower retail, and possibly, lower wholesale rates... > I suppose they mean that if a subscriber uses a LOT of minutes, that person will get a bulk discount. That makes sense because there aren't enough handsets, so it's vital to get handsets to the people who will pay a LOT in minutes [from Globalstar's point of view]. But why does that mean lower wholesale rates? I don't see what that means. Once there are enough handsets and the handset and minute prices are in balance so there is no queue for handsets, minute prices should be lowered until the constellation fills. Then prices should be raised to keep supply and demand balanced. So, handsets should be expensive at first, then decline in price as the constellation fills. The minutes should be cheap at first, to encourage massive demand and rapid handset production [when handsets are super profitable, Qualcomm, Telit and Ericsson will go 24/7 to boost production]. Since production can only be expanded at some rate, the minutes won't be too cheap or the handset prices will be $10,000 on the second hand market. Meanwhile, it's all theorizing until they finally, in the end, belatedly and maybe in 2000 start letting actual icky customers get their hands on a phone. But wait. 15 November is just around the corner and maybe those websites 'under construction' are suddenly going to have the covers ripped off and in resplendent glory will be the most earth shattering marketing campaign the world has ever seen. The FBI will fade like ghosts in the morning. Gateways will light up the sky and satellites will spring to life as 300,000 handsets pour out onto the information superhighway. We'll go into 2000 in a blaze of glory and excitement. Jaws will drop. Marketing schools from Harvard to Hawea [a less significant marketing district in NZ] will rewrite their textbooks and retrain their academics. Handsets will be beeping from Vladivostok to Valparaiso [bet you don't know where that is]. $$$$$$ will tumble from the sky in a cyberstream to the bottom of Globalstar's balance sheet. Ahhhhhhhhhhh, bliss. Maurice