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.

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

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (23743)	7/7/2001 10:15:18 AM
From: Drew Williams	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Mq, I agree that this idea is not a good one for Globalstar, since it will limit the number of satellite connections, and they could not afford to do it anyway. You and I have always agreed that there is a much larger demand for satellite minutes (marketed correctly and at the right price) than the current constellation can provide. Additionally, almost all of the existing Globalstar phones are already dual mode, meaning that they can already talk to appropriate local cellular networks where available, so there would be no added utility to the consumer. In ICO's case, however, they have no infrastructure in place as of yet. This may be a back-door proposal to allow them to use their spectrum to build an ordinary cellular system, something they are confident can make money, because they've done it before and made money doing it. ICO certainly needs to be more creative than Iridium and Globalstar, who have poured billions of our money down the rathole. G* built its system on the premise of being a satellite system that also could talk to cellular systems if it had to. ICO may be turning that on its head by building a cellular system that could talk to a satellite if it had to. Frankly, if Verizon were to offer a phone about 2x the size/weight of my wife's Kyocera 2035 that could also do satellite, and it did not cost much more to own or any more to use except when actually in satellite mode, I think that would be a winner even if the minutes were expensive.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (23743)	7/12/2001 11:53:04 PM
From: Clarksterh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Maurice - You could actually do what you are talking about: 1) When it would take less power to talk to a basestation then to talk to the satellite, use the basestation. 2) When it would take less power to talk to a satellite than to the nearest basestation, use the satellite. The users of the basestation would impact the capacity of the satellite since they would add to the interference that the satellite user links see. But overall it would still be a net gain in total users, probably by a substantial margin. The largest problem is that this would then entail each G* satellite having to hand off not just to another G* satellite, but probably multiple ground basestations. Probably a pretty complex venture. Clark PS There is another reason above and beyond antenna gain that the power required for a satellite link is substantially less than proportional to the power required for a terrestrial cell link times the (range satellite/cell radius)^2. On the ground the power required is proportional to r^3 to r^4 due ground reflections, buildings, ... so that the cell radius is much less than you would naively think for a given power.