Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (88342)	3/31/2001 11:31:17 PM
From: Skeeter Bug	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

cb, i'm specifically talking about globalstar and iridium. take a look at gs' business performance and disaster comes to mind. re: india and china. you and i both know that percentage increases are all but meaningless b/c we don't know the base from which that growth occurred. i believe that the average annual income in china and india are exceptionally low. so low that buying an $800 phone and paying $1.00+ per minute or $50+ a month in service is unrealistic. do you dispute this? what do you believe the avg annual wages in china and india are? i would rather avg a million dollar annual wage and lose 4% than avg $800 and gain 4%. this is why % growth is meaningless.

To: Ilaine who wrote (88342)	4/1/2001 12:05:23 AM
From: RocketMan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

The LEO companies have all gone bankrupt because of the incredible expense in putting up dozens of birds before getting a nickle in revenue. You make good points, Cobalt, but launch costs, IMO, are not the biggest problem for LEOs. LEO launch costs, last I checked, were about $5k/pound, 50% or so cheaper than GEO. And at LEO you can get by with smaller satellites due lower power requirements, smaller antennas, etc. Plus you can pack several satellites on the same vehicle, so the overall launch savings are considerable, perhaps 2-3 times cheaper than large GEO satellites. The big ticket item for a LEO constellation is its care and feeding, i.e., active tracking, telemetry, and control, as well as the ground entry points and terrestrial network needed to provide the down and up links for near-real time comm. I was very much of a skeptic with Iridium, because I could not see a break even at much under $10 per minute. Couldn't get many on that board to listen to my case, so I left it. Made the same point with Globalstar, with the same results. I think the most cost-effective concept is ORBCOMM, a message-based system, but I don't know if it can compete with land-based cellular or GEO services, for the same reasons, and the reasons you have pointed out. There is also the problem that circular LEO orbits necessarily spend most of their time over the oceans and other unpopulated regions. Wonder whatever happened to Ellipso?