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


To: Tahoetech who wrote (20690)12/31/2000 12:44:59 PM
From: pcstel  Respond to of 29987
 
Tahoe: "these were guests of my husband and I had no idea that one of them possessed such an extensive knowledge of telecommunications (worked for Ericsson and is on staff at a German University in research and development in telecommunications).."

This is easy stuff.. Just ask him what applications require 300kbs mobile data?? And ask him to present a Business Plan that would present a ROI based on the price paid for 3G spectrum, interest payments, infrastructure buildout, and who is going to provide/fund the Vendor Financing??

This guy is like Gilder!!! "It's the Technology" is their cry!! Where they should be saying.. "Where is the money???" Earlier in 2000 "Wall Street and the liquidity markets" were yelling "It's the Technology!!!".. Now they are screaming "Where is the Money??"..

It's like the economics of IFN.. Sure it sounds great!! But, let's run some economic figures on it...

Let's take the 100 million per quarter cash burn rate of G*. Or about 1.1 million a day!! Globalstar needs to sell 3.14 million minutes a day (@ .35 per minute)for operational break even. Divide that across estimated 10,000 commercial airline flights per day, and IF EVERY COMMERCIAL AIRLINER had IFN installed today.. Each of those 10,000 flights would have to use 314 minutes of single channel airtime @ .35 cents a minute or 110 dollars a flight!! And we will assume that the AVERAGE airliner @ full capacity holds 100 passengers. (i.e. average between DC-10, MD-11, 777,767,757,737,727, but alot of those 10,000 flights are smaller commuter aircraft which probably won't have IFN installed).. And since most airlines load factors run about 70 - 75% system wide.. Would lead us to believe that everyday 700,000 people take flight in the US!! That would equal every passenger on every plane in the US would have to pay $1.57 in IFN charges on every flight every day to get G* to operational break even. Under current obligations! And that is, IF, it was installed on EVERY AIRCRAFT operating in the US TODAY!!

PCSTEL



To: Tahoetech who wrote (20690)12/31/2000 3:40:14 PM
From: rf_hombre  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 29987
 
Tahoetech:he was surprised to learn we still have analog in our area, claiming Germany is far more advanced than the US (I think in our conversation he might have had a propensity for ethnocentricity) but since I don't know anything about the state of wireless in Germany I accepted his statement...

Based on my experience in wireless in both the US and Germany, I think it would be fair to say that mobile phones are more prevalent in Germany and in Western Europe. In other words, the penetration rates in those countries are higher than 55% while in the US it's more like 40%.

But what I find more of a matter of concern is that Europeans (including the East) seem far more eager to use their phones and based on my experience more wireless savvy. Absence of airtime charges for receiving party may account for the difference in behavior and for a far more consumer receptive environment. In the interest of the consumer and of our industry, we should really do away with the silly airtime charges for incoming calls.

Otherwise, the last I heard is that Ericsson had a WCDMA phone but it weighed about a ton (I am exaggerating a bit) but the in North America, colleagues are reporting wireless internet trial speeds greater than 100kb/s (unloaded HDR CDMA)