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Technology Stocks : Leap Wireless International (LWIN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: golfinvestor who wrote (2529)	10/14/2002 3:41:36 PM
From: pcstel	Respond to of 2737

The shareholder's have really been let down by LWIN's poor management. I, for one, expected a lot more from Harvey White. A Management which was forced to sell UT's at low prices, with huge subsidies in the name of loan covenents. I estimate almost 250 million in subsidies have been paid out to date. If they had simply had more time to achieve subscriber goals without having to provide over $150 in handset subsidies per phone. Handset subsidies along with over aggressive purchase prices paid for spectrum. (LWIN prided itself on the low, low prices it paid for spectrum). However, the CenturyTel deal for the Michigan properties was way out line. Over 250 million cash paid for what is now almost worthless spectrum. You can't subsidize a "no contract" phone! If you let people have cake, and eat it too. Soon you will not have any cake left! And so it goes! PCSTEL

To: golfinvestor who wrote (2529)	10/14/2002 8:50:05 PM
From: verdad	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2737

It might be interesting to know Harvey White's precise LWIN trading history. Having said that, though, QCOM shareholders have done quite well by LWIN, both via the LWIN dividend (if they sold LWIN shares) and strategic benefits of CDMA adoption. Speculative spectrum purchases by LWIN might have been made in order to strategically influence industry to adopt LWIN's CDMA service pricing strategy sooner rather than later (putting pressure on non CDMA technologies) and in order to own enough spectrum in various markets to make LEAP a potential take over candidate (thus increasing shareholder value). However, spectrum market changed drastically when technology and wireless industries took a turn for the worse, making a take-over scenario unlikely. One might blame management for changes in the industry since some of mgt's decisions seemed to be based upon unsustainable growth projections and other ridiculous assumptions (like LWIN could handle $2B debt etc). But, some of the current economic malaise and world events are likely beyond anyone's ability to predict or foresee, while the timing of such events is sometimes more impacting than the events themselves.