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Technology Stocks : METRICOM - Wireless Data Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Marc D. who wrote (633)	2/26/1998 4:36:00 AM
From: Javelyn Bjoli	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3376

I understand you have been waiting for LA rollout for a long time, but last year Metricom was running out of money, and frankly their management was not so good. The technology is sound (until digital cell phone rates become cheap enough to compete), but it does take a lot of capital to roll out a network infrastructure. In Metricom's case, it also takes a year per city of haggling permission & payment structure for rights to put their boxes on the light poles. That is a lot of lawyer bills to do simultaneous rollout in many cities, and a big reason they were trying to go slower until the revenue base built up. Which is to say, Metricom was a goner until Paul Allen showed up. The stock basically tripled after he came around, although it has fallen back, waiting to hear what he is going to do with the company. Why does he have only 49.5% of the stock - why not push it over the threshold & take official majority control? Is he going to dump the millions required to roll out the network, or is he just priming the company to be sold, to recoup his initial small investment? This is what people are waiting for before running the stock up again. I think if you wait for the announcement it will be too late, but then again if an announcement were imminent, wouldn't the volume be perking up on the rumor? Anyone else have comments?