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To: dougjn who wrote (6486)12/15/1997 11:38:00 AM
From: qdog  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 152472
 
One advantage that gstrf has over Iridium is CDMA. Flexible platform. You have oil exploration and construction on remote regions that not only have a tremendous need for voice and fax, but higher speed data. That is just one example to throw in. CDMA has the ability to give you the B/W in a more flexible manner than TDMA channelized method.



To: dougjn who wrote (6486)12/15/1997 1:21:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 152472
 
Doug, I was looking at a Lexus the other day. They have a built in voice dialling cellphone. If you go to 80% of the land area on NZ, you don't get coverage. You never get GPS either. With Globalstar, you could have both. Never be lost. Anyone buying a Lexus, Mercedes, BMW, etc will want a built in Globalstar phone. Then anyone with a yacht. Then anyone on an oil rig or on a ship. All aircraft. Then anyone who just wants a decent phone which works on all their business trips anywhere. Then anyone with a bit of money; not even that much either as you only use the Globalstar part of it when you are out of range of normal cellular. You don't need to gossip for half an hour, but if out of range of cellular, you won't be too worried about $1 if you are trying to meet somebody and you don't want to spend 20 minutes looking for them. A quick "where are you?" sorts it out.

No sweat to get 20 million people at $1 per minute. The question is, how will Globalstar allocate call time. I say by auction, with about 40% of subscribers being on an auction plan. Others can be on fixed or whatever prices. Raise the price as any particular point gets too heavily loaded. Leave the price near zero until customers have flooded in and got the system really busy. Handsets would be super expensive initially as millions crowd in to get the free space calling. Then handsets would reduce in price and call charges increase depending on demand. Then when getting full and really profitable, boost capacity with more satellites.

The real question is not how many subscribers, but how many minutes? How many subscribers is only relevant to the handset sellers. They can fill the system at $1 per minute. But they need to do it fast! Not wait years to fill it, which is their current plan. That leaves the door open to competitors. They need to sell minutes at 5 cents per minute until it starts to get a bit busy. They have almost no marginal cost for a new subscriber minute, so they need to get people on line. Price is how you do that.

So I think they'll make some money. Enough to justify $200 per share. But I'll be on the look out for competitors and it's sad that they are going to run a government department type system instead of a free market type. Still, that's what competition is for.

Mqurice