To: Al Gutkin who wrote (2731 ) 10/24/1997 11:21:00 PM From: Arnie Doolittle Read Replies (4) | Respond to
Al, you make several telling statements that must be addressed. I'm not a techie so my observations are second hand at best but here goes anyway. First, iDEN is a digital technology, SMR is analog. So your observation that NXTL's technology is obsolete is off base by a mile. While it's true that iDEN is tdma as opposed to cdma, the primary difference is related to capacity, not quality (some would argue this point). From a customer's point of view, it's irrelevant. While the future may look doubtful to you, customers disagree and are flocking to NXTL in ever increasing numbers. Sounds like your info is incomplete at best. Second, satellites may ultimately come up with a dispatch feature but they've got some significant hurdles to overcome in the meantime. Like what? *** Getting their systems up and working (no small technological feat requiring more time than they currently anticipate). *** Dealing with the basics of telephony service before venturing into dispatch-like features. *** Overcoming NXTL's lead time and first to market advantage - a real bigger. *** Overcoming NXTL's cost advantages - also a biggie. *** The sat guys will work hard on the unwired part of the world first, trying to be first-to-market so as to gain market share before their competitors do. In my view the sats will focus on the commodity biz first, getting it working properly and capturing as many users as possible before focusing on the dispatch niche. There are other challenges the sat rats face but we'll leave them for another time. Battery packs are the least of the problems.
