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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: limtex who wrote (8333)	3/9/2001 10:55:30 AM
From: saukriver	Respond to of 196500

limtex, Metricom's Ricochet service is not CDMA. It is also not particularly good service (slower than 56K); (although I gather from one of this morning's post that Richochet may prove faster than GPRS!). The Ricochet2 (supposedly faster at 128+K) has been a mirage in a sense. I am a Ricochet subscriber. I have been mailed "wait until [fill in month in next quarter]" mailings for several years projecting when Metricom will roll out Richochet2. So far, nothing really offered that I know of in Seattle area. Right around the corner, though. Same as it has been for the past 2 years. I would not worry about Ricochet, even assuming Paul Allen is willing to pump more cash into MCOM. The hurdles to rolling out this technology are costly and staggering. The faster Ricochet2 service will be pricey, although it may fill market niches. See Message 15114258 Since that post on Jan. 3, the biggest change to Metricom is that it is running out of dough. See seattle.bcentral.com Now Allen and Savoy must devise a strategy for rescuing one of his biggest recent technology investments - the $300 million that Vulcan sank last August into Metricom Inc., a struggling wireless data company. The entire company is now valued about $140 million, less than half of what Allen invested, and it lost $106 million on operations in the last quarter. Metricom warned last month that it may have to curtail operations if it can't raise more money soon. Allen, with a 43 percent controlling stake in Metricom, is clearly in the driver's seat, and last month installed a Vulcan alumnus as interim CEO saukriver