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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (8605)	9/9/2001 5:30:52 PM
From: jim black	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

Again, experience too close to home, CB, my brother-in-law was stupid enough to have no diversity in his portfolio, his two stocks! being Metricom(Ricochet) and MSFT. I begged him to sell his Metricom when it hit 60+ (he in at 10!) but no, because Paul Allen put billions! into it he held onto it all the way down to near zero. Manai again. Point is, laptop internet access seems a no brainer, and Ricochet worked faily well up and down I5 corridor for a couple of years. Such was my hope for Globalstar eventually and ceratinly for Loral, but alas the buffoons who ran/ mismanaged both companies went the way of Ricochet. And Iridium, all those brilliant ideas, poof! With the mania. For awhile I was hoping for GMH Direct TV, etc, but they are in such debt, who knows. It will come someday, but not sure I'll live to see it profitable: internet access form the skies. Jim Of all stocks: caveat emptor

To: Ilaine who wrote (8605)	9/9/2001 6:31:46 PM
From: Starowl	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74559

High speed satellite connections to laptops with worldwide coverage exists today, as you may know, with Inmarsat systems. High speed being 64kbps. But it isn't cheap, running $7-8/minute. The satellite terminals are much smaller than they used to be, weighing just 8 or 9 pounds, running on a rechargeable batter, and no larger than a small laptop. You can make phone calls from them anywhere using the low speed ports at about $3/minute. Connecting from either an Iridium or Globalstar handset still requires a clear look at the satellite and, when available, will only get you 9.6kbps. Surfing the Internet is just not worthwhile over satellite. Straight data transfer; yes.