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Technology Stocks : Loral Space & Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: brian h who wrote (1992)	2/19/1998 12:54:00 AM
From: Valueman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10852

The Bangkok Post continues to put out good info: Globalstar sees promising niche Public 'village phones' could pay dividends Nondhanada Intarakomalyasut This might not seem like a good time for the promoters of expensive satellite telecommunications to be revising their forecasts upward, but Suroj Lamsam has his reasons. The president of Globalstar (Thailand) says government spending cuts have created a potential new niche for the service, which is due to start operating in the second quarter of next year. The international Globalstar consortium launched its first satellites on the weekend. Globalstar (Thailand) now expects to capture 60,000 domestic subscribers, up from an earlier forecast of 40,000, Mr Suroj said yesterday. The key will lie in how successfully the company can promote the service as a public phone system in remote areas. "Since the government may have to cut down the budget for rural public phone projects, Globalstar sees an opportunity to fulfil demand in areas where there is a lack of basic telephone service." Success will depend on a proper pricing strategy, he said. "The airtime fee for the 'village phone' is expected to be lower than for mobile phone service." Globalstar airtime fees are expected to be about US$1 per minute, much less than the $3 for the rival Iridium project. Globalstar, Iridium and ICO (formerly Inmarsat) are the three global consortia that expect to begin offering service next year. "We considered our target group differently from Iridium's," Mr Suroj said. "In other words, we are likely to capture the lower end of the market. "Our satellites may not be as sophisticated and 'smart' as Iridium's. But our network is based on the satellite-to-gateway link, not satellite-to-satellite. If there's a problem, it's a lot cheaper to fix it at the ground station than to go up into space." Globalstar (Thailand) expects to break even in its fourth year. The company has reserved 200,000 numbers from the Telephone Organisation of Thailand. The international Globalstar group launched four low-earth-orbit satellites on Saturday. The satellites, manufactured by Space Systems/Loral, were delivered into orbit by a Boeing Delta II rocket. "This is an important milestone for Globalstar," said Bernard Schwartz, CEO of both Globalstar and Loral Space and Communications, Globalstar's largest equity owner. The US$2.6-billion Globalstar system will consist of 48 low-earth-orbit satellites, eight spares and about 60 ground stations worldwide. It will allow people around the world to make or receive calls using mobile and fixed-line phones. The next four satellites are scheduled to be launched on April 24. By the end of the year there should be 44 satellites in orbit. Twelve more, including the eight in-orbit spares, will be delivered in early 1999. Globalstar (Thailand) will soon start building a $10-million gateway station at Bang Lamung, Chon Buri. It will have the capacity to cover Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and part of Malaysia. "In the beginning, the project would provide mainly voice service. Later on it would be developed for data transmission." Globalstar (Thailand) is a 51:49 joint venture between Loxley and South Korea's Hyundai group. The proportion will be amended now that the TOT has accepted a 10% stake. "The gateway in Thailand is expected to be the regional gateway for Globalstar since other potential countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia have delayed their gateway projects," Mr Suroj said. Funds for the gateway project were raised by Hyundai. Handsets for Globalstar are supplied by several manufacturers, so prices should be more competitive than for other satellite mobile phone projects, Mr Suroj said. "Unlike the Iridium project which would definitely use Motorola handsets alone, we would offer various brands of terminal." Globalstar handsets are expected to cost less than $1,000. The company is negotiating with many handset manufacturers but Mr Suroj declined to reveal the brands. The handsets would be both dual-mode GSM and tri-mode CDMA.

To: brian h who wrote (1992)	2/19/1998 9:24:00 AM
From: Geoff	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10852

Brian, and anyone else having problems getting into the FAQ. The "black out" is actually index.html, the main page of the FAQ, but all it does is feature a little entry message and the latest news about LOR. index.html then automatically sends you to index2.html (about 3 seconds later), which is the real part of the FAQ, with the menu, quotes, etc. Some older browsers, and I think IE, does not recognize the javascript that the FAQ uses, so it may appear to be a black out. For those of you experiencing this problem, you can use the following URL - idt.net. This just gets you past that welcome screen, which I put up to make the site a little cooler, but I guess not everyone can see it. Oh well. Hope this helps. BTW, the list of companies that have visited the FAQ is impressive. Some newer ones include: Enron, Schwab, CS First Boston, Lehman, General Electric, Mindspring, and not to mention the older companies like Boeing, Amdahl, Lockheed Martin, CDRadio, Rockwell, Lucent, IBM, etc. And a whole boat load of visits from Loral and Globalstar, but no one from those companies has signed the guestbook :( Don't worry, I have no idea where any on this board, or any other board works, I just know what domains are coming through the FAQ. geoff