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

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/16/2000 6:37:01 PM
From: Jon Koplik	Respond to of 29987

Gregg -- welcome back ! (bro). Jon. eom.

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/16/2000 7:42:47 PM
From: Rocket Scientist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Very powerfully argued, by an impeccable source; very much appreciated by me and all longs, I'm sure. But allow me to ask you to attack two of the stronger bearish arguments that you overlooked. 1. Management has lost credibility due to its failure to execute stated business plan milestones. Worse, it's explanations of the failures lack credibility and internal consistency. For example slow ramp up has been blamed, variously, on handset production delays and regulatory delays in opening gateways, but, damningly, the latest 10Q says (for the first time): "(i) Globalstar has recently commenced commercial service and subscriber demand to date has been lower than expected" (emphasis added) 2. G* Gateway operators are in many cases artificial constructs, and just middlemen themselves, without their own subscriber base and local marketing clout as might be imagined by your list of G* strategic partners. In N. America, GUSA is a division of Vodafone....it's connection with the new Verizon appear tenuous to non-existent. G Canada's local partner is not a wireless operator; ditto G* Mexico and G* Brazil. TESAM, a construct of France Telecom and Alcatel, is getting little apparent marketing benefit from its FT parentage. Only in Australia and (maybe) China is the Gateway operator a significant wireless provider. Again, thanks for your comments which count a lot more for many of us than the likes of George Gilder.

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/16/2000 7:49:23 PM
From: TMann	Respond to of 29987

Greg. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on G. I'm much relieved to find that you're with us in the G boat or titanic as it seems lately. I hope you can continue to update us on your perspective of how the rollout, financing, and sub. ramp up is going. I agree with most of your points, but am disappointed in laid back nonchalant attitude of SPs. Perhaps the elephants will start to trott soon (all I've seen lately is elephant poop). I hope so cause the debt bomb keeps ticking. Thanks again and don't be so rare!

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/16/2000 7:50:32 PM
From: A.L. Reagan	Respond to of 29987

There are three relevent investment questions: (1) does the system work, (2) will the company run out of money prior to implementation of the marketing plan and (3) what is the true demand equation. May I respectfully add a fourth: Can the various management teams actually execute? (Or will these SP elephants ever drag their asses out of the terrestrial watering hole in which they currently wallow?)

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/16/2000 8:56:39 PM
From: Michaelth1	Respond to of 29987

Gregg: Thank you for the great post. My primary concern with G* is basically a timing issue, i.e., it's not if it will succeed, it's when. Unfortunately, because of G's debt load and probable lack of access to public debt, the "when" question matters more to G than it does to most other long-term investments. Clearly G* doesn't need to turn profitable to be able to receive public funding, but imo it does need to show that breakeven is foreseeable. My concern is that, to date, most of the SPs simply have not prioritized G* and given it the opportunity to succeed. Resources (people, marketing funds, data mining tools, etc.) have not been made available by the parents of the SPs to the G* SPs. While I don't think that the SPs are conspiring to put G* into BK, I also don't think that the SPs particularly care too much about G's profitability. I think that their focus is on the profitability of each gateway (which makes sense; I'm sure whoever is in charge of each GW will be judged, and compensated, based on the profitability of that GW, not G as a whole). The SPs' corporate parents will get around to giving the SPs the ability / resources to succeed when it becomes a sufficient priority for them. The problem is that we don't know when that is. I hope that it will be soon as I've felt for a time now that the SPs have been waiting for G* to be fully functional (e.g., roaming, voice mail, data, etc.) prior to giving the big push. Do you think that there's any possibility that the SPs will allow G* to sink into BK as they focus their attention elsewhere? Then bring G* out of BK (with the same cast and crew of SPs) when they're good and ready? Or in the very least substantially dilute the current holders of common stock as the SPs fund G* when it has no other options? Fwiw (not much), I agree with you that increased cellular coverage has not hurt G* (it probably has helped in certain ways), but the massive amount of M & A activity of the corporate parents of the SPs has caused G* to become a lower priority for those companies. I guess my ultimate question is: when does G* become a priority (i.e., resources made available) for the SPs and at what point, if any, does the inaction by the SPs make it "too late" for G*'s current shareholders to reap the reward of the system's ultimate success? TIA.

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/16/2000 9:05:15 PM
From: TShirtPrinter	Respond to of 29987

Greetings Mr. Powers, Thanks for "coming out" and let the world hear from you. You've been sorely missed all around. This seems a bit like the help you were giving many of us on QCOM early in 1998. I'll never be able to Thank You enough for that. It seems like yesterday we were celebrating your upcoming marriage. I hope all is well. Tony PS By the way, I was in a small plane over the Canadian Rockies with my family only a couple weeks ago. At 10,000 feet over glaciers I thought I really should have anted up for a G* phone.

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/16/2000 9:18:41 PM
From: Boplicity	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 29987

Welcome back. When you get right down to it the stock has done nothing for 4.75 years and is now flat line like a dead patient. How much longer do you feel it will take for this stock and company to reward shares holders? Thanks, G

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/16/2000 10:48:02 PM
From: brian h	Respond to of 29987

Gregg, Welcome. It is pleasure to have you post again. Brian H.

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/16/2000 10:50:38 PM
From: 16yearcycle	Respond to of 29987

Great to hear from you and wishing you all the best.

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/17/2000 1:08:56 AM
From: waverider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Thank you Gregg. A breath of fresh air. You have been missed. And I think I speak for all when I say that your future contributions will be extremely valuable to us. A round of Guiness for all! Rick

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/17/2000 1:46:33 AM
From: Ruffian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

biz.yahoo.com

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/17/2000 5:43:51 AM
From: gdichaz	Respond to of 29987

Gregg: It is with joy that we have the opportunity to read an intelligent, perceptive and well researched analysis on G* by you. There is only one question left, your evaluation of Loral/G*'s management approach. Comment? Might you comment on Qualcomm? Some burning of the underbrush would be helpful there also. Since one of my last posts to you was in celebration of your marriage, hope all is well with you both. Thanks for your willingness to contribute here and hope you will provide a needed analysis to provide clarity on the Q also. Deepest respect. Chaz

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/17/2000 6:20:06 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 29987

<I think 13,000 subscribers by the end of June was pretty damn reasonable. > Gidday Gregg and thanks for the perspective! You have a fairly extensive fan club and I'm tempted to organize a Gregg Powers Short Squeeze [GPSS] tomorrow in recognition, but my short squeeze track record so far hasn't been so good and I'd hate to organize a fizzer in your honour. GPRS is not looking good. The GSRS* is still in prototype. So a GPSS doesn't seem auspicious either. The 13,000 subscribers gave everyone the panic feelings because it was so grossly at odds with the expectations of Bernie Schwartz as recently as early this year. At Telecom99, Bernie was revving Irwin up to rev up the handset production lines, which seemed absurd to me and I was pleased that Irwin sat impassively, presumably waiting for somebody to get out a chequebook. I vividly recall a two year gap between Irwin Jacobs' expectations for adoption of CDMA and the actual first commercial businesses [excluding Los Angeles]. Excluding Zenit, we have so far suffered not even a one year delay. We are about half a year behind. Which, in the grand scheme of the 21st century, is not the end of the world. There seems to be panic at the gap between what Bernie Schwartz expected to happen and what really did happen. Bernie bet a dinner that Globalstar would be hot to trot in September. I think he lost the bet [and didn't pay - I haven't heard that he did pay]. Valueman was told there was a South African licence when there was not. There have been a number of disconnects between reality [actuality in Noo Yorkese] and The Plan. This has unsettled a multibillion $$ enterprise. Until reality and expectations match up a bit better, and the Web site coverage maps match what's actually available and so do lists of countries providing service, I think the share price will reflect serious concerns and fear of losing money. 13,000 subscribers and a couple of million minutes is pitiful for a system which less than a year ago was going to have 1 million subscribers by the end of Y2K. The opportunity cost of the minutes rotting in space is high if not astronomical. Meanwhile, German UMTS auction reaches $43 billion and continues.... totaltele.com So much for people who whine that beauty contests are the way to go and that the UK auction was a weird, insane aberration. Those who say that the bids won't leave money for buildout fail to understand economics. Those who say the high bids will cause high prices don't understand competition and 'market clearing pricing'. Companies will sell the minutes for what the market will bear. If they are given the minutes, they won't sell them any cheaper than if they pay the market price, which is a function of how crowded the spectrum will be. Globalstar has worldwide coverage. Germany's $43bn is for a single country!! Globalstar is cheaper than $43bn. This will seem very weird in 3 years. Mqurice * GSRS = Graviton Spin Reversal System GPRS = General Packet Radio Service GPSS = Gregg Powers Short Squeeze GSM = Toast.

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/17/2000 10:53:38 AM
From: A.J. Mullen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29987

Hi Gregg, I'm going to disagree about the utility of G* to pilots of small planes. Not disagreeably I hope, I always enjoyed your Q posts and often took reassurance from them. Not that a G* phone would not be useful to a downed pilot, but there have been hand-held radios available for a long time. They are lighter, much cheaper, and useful at times other than emergencies. They only have line of sight, but the contiguous states are pretty well criss-crossed with air ways. I'd rather use the extra weight for other emergency gear. By the way, to whom are you connected if you dial 911 on a G* phone? The emergency services closest to the gateway? I am not suggesting that this is a substantial problem. Another aside, have you seen that there's a company selling cell-phones that may be used legally in the air? For "ordinairy" use in general aviation. Aviation Consumer ran an article on them recently. Not cheap, but less expensive (and less useful) than G*. Ashley

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/17/2000 11:24:53 AM
From: engineer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29987

Gregg, Good to have you back in the SI threads. Welcome to the neighborhood. Two points. First, one of my friends went to Alaska last month to go fishing on one of those remote lakes and was flown in by plane. At the airport they were renting G* phones for the backpackers to use for rescue. All the bush pilots had them and they were selling like hotcakes up there. But when I posted this, everyone told me they would not offer this for months. My friend called me on the phone and told me how good it worked up there. Seems your idea has caught on in some places and perhaps even G* isn't aware of it. I also think that in areas where there are higher availabilty of wired and wireless services, G* will have a harder time of rollout, but in those areas where voice service is highly limited, the rollouts will proceed faster. So to blast about why G* has not rolled out in NYC or LA is purely crazy. How about in the Colorado rockies or in the Arizona desert or Navajo Indian reservations? Here are some ares where finding a phone can take an hour or so. I would expect G* in Alaska and Canada to have a much faster rollout. Second, I can remember and lived through the 1994, 1995, and 1996 roll outs of CDMA and remember Jacobs Patter, The standford professor, Bill Frezza, Tero, and a few other choice commentators who posted and blasted the news with insights about what was going on. Being one of the people tasked with rollout of this, the actual facts were quite different from what these "valued" analysts were posting on a day to day basis. One thing I can say is that during that time, your due diligence in investigating what was really going on had a truer track record than any other posted analysis. I credit that to your being a "bulldog" and going into top management offices and asking the tough questions. Not alot of these analysts actually go visit the companies they blast. Half of them just paraphrase what the other one says. We can hope that the G* group will continue to innovate, expand service, and go pick off the easy fruits that hang low. I would have expected the Ford Wingcast to have G* in it. I would also expect all Scata data to have G* in it, as this is a tough remote process with many points. Any thought on G* attacking bulk markets? G* data?

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/19/2000 9:47:45 AM
From: rf_hombre	Respond to of 29987

Mr. Powers, Thanks so much for your August 16 Perspective post. I found your comparison of Globalstar’s launch to that of Airtouch’s in Los Angeles in 1996 to be particularly insightful. Another part that resonated with me was your synthesis of the three relevant questions investment questions, namely “(1) does the system work, (2) will the company run out money prior to implementation of the marketing plan and (3) what is the true demand equation.” I agree with your conclusions regarding (1) and (2) but am somewhat less sanguine about your treatment of (3) and would like to nuance a bit my position on the matter. You stated: "While there are distribution challenges, i.e. Globalstar customers, at least in the U.S. do not by-and-large wander into a local cellular phone store and buy a phone, these issues are being addressed on a market-by-market basis. This having been said, some vertical markets will adopt the technology more rapidly than others." I think that the points of sale methodology alone will not be successful. In actual fact, having numerous points of sale will be valuable but only when G* becomes more mainstream and enters the general public product space. By its very nature, selling G* service requires a very focused approach. I indicated in the following post one possible “push methodology” for Globalstar USA that, in simple terms, consists in targeting existing Airtouch customers at the periphery of the operator’s footprint. Message 14136019 Secondly in reference to “It is reasonable to presume that those living in urban/suburban areas of the industrialised world won’t substitute a satellite phone for their accessible, reliable and smaller cellular phones. So what?” Having been a “network doctor” for six years, I can say that many of my patients have suffered from debilitating conditions of under dimensioned and poorly planned and optimised networks. This is hardly the fault of these adolescent networks that have faced phenomenal subscriber growth and the associated ills of rapid success such as low employee retention rates. The point is that in many urban areas of the world, cellular service is not reliable both in terms of dropped calls and availability, or interference and congestion in cellular-speak. Furthermore, there is currently no terrestrial cellular operator that can handle bursts of traffic, like those seen during vehicular traffic jams, conventions or football games or even during transient busy hour conditions. In this case then why not use the Globalstar constellation as the ultimate capacity umbrella cell ? Just as the subscriber can switch to satellite mode when there is a coverage hole, he can just as well switch to satellite mode when there is a capacity sink. Perhaps more so than for the coverage case, this transition to a higher capacity layer would be best if it were transparent to the user in the capacity limited scenario. (refer to siliconinvestor.com I sent the previous post to IR but received nothing more than a cursory response. I continue to believe that there are tremendous synergies between terrestrial operators and Globalstar Service to provide mass market in-fill coverage to terrestrial cellular providers, therefore I am uneasy with Globalstar’s efforts to focus predominantly on the vertical markets. Instead, cellular infrastructure providers can focus capital expenditures, operation and maintenance efforts in the urban cores, where they make the most out of their investment dollar, while they can outsource the outlying area coverage requirement to the Globalstar SP’s. The economies of scale involved will become even more obvious as the UMTS rollouts begin. Regards, rf_hombre

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/21/2000 1:27:54 PM
From: RalphCramden	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

To Gregg: The thing I really would like to see addressed in your analysis is what will the return to PRESENT shareholders be. Lets accept the proposition that G* will be a successful business using the current satellites, the current phones, and the current partners all selling service to the various markets within each of their franchises. But my nightmare as a current shareholder is this: the owners of G* when it succeeds are not really the current owners (stockholders like me) anymore. My nightmare is we have been diluted away or even bakruptcyed away. Bankruptcy, or even near-bankruptcy (where ownership is incredibly diluted in order to, as a condition of, raising required cash) seems somewhat likely. I'm not enough of an MBA-type to put a percentage on it, but lacking that training 50% probability that equity is heavily diluted before the cash is rolling in seems plausible. Bankruptcy or near-bankruptcy-dilution seem acceptable to the "elephants" as long as it occurs without a service interruption. And that seems quite plausible. Clearly, keeping the constellation operating preserves much more value in the asset than otherwise, so I would expect bondholders, service provider partners and whomever else to support that. So IF I am correct that bankruptcy or near-bankruptcy-dilution can be accomplished without interrupting operations of the constellation, than I would expect service providers and current bondholders to SUPPORT it, as it allows for needed cash to be raised and/or reduces obligations of G* LP. So what I would love your opinion on are: 1) Will the elephants blithely allow bankruptcy or near-bankruptcy of G* LP, or is there some value to the elephants in funding G* LP in such a way that avoids large dilution of current shareholders ownership? 2) How close is/will G* LP come to meeting the accounting requirements to be declared bankrupt before it is healthily solvent? 3) What are your expectations of current shareholder's reduction of return due to dilution? (It seems to me you only addressed loss of return due to the business being bad.) Thanks, Ralph

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (15822)	8/22/2000 11:14:19 PM
From: stealthy	Respond to of 29987

Gregg, Glad to see you posting again; Followed your comments on the Q with great interest from the beginning; Agree ultimate success of G* is likely; Given your view of G* prospects, would appreciate your thoughts on associated outlook for LOR and whether it may be timely to begin now.... some LOR accumulation as well; (Thanks again for your balanced and informative posts) Stealthy