Hi all, I'm back! Looks like I've missed a lot of action. I haven't had time to go through all the old posts yet, or update the FAQ, but I will this weekend. Also, be aware that the FAQ is moving at the end of the weekend, I got my own domain! I will tell you all where it is when I'm done. Also, there will be a lot of new info, but more on that later....
Time to do the deed. Here's Readware's posts (I haven't even read them yet)....
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Subject: Miscellaneous E Mails
Date: Fri, Feb 20, 1998 20:30 EST
From: Readware
Message-id: <19980221013000.UAA04761@ladder03.news.aol.com>
TravRoute's Co-Pilot is the automobile GPS of choice, I think, in response to the question about Trimble navigation.
*
I believe it is I-Cube that makes Alcatel's ethernet chips. I-Cube is in Campbell. The chips need to be galium arsenided (CGaAs), though, for a satellite:-- that is the best way to get chips radiaton-hardened. No one CMOS's chips for a GEO. All logical circuitry and logic related chips on a GEO need to be radiation hardened.
*
Flywheel does promise to be a large advance over current battery systems. There is a company in Boston called SatCon which is working on this too, not just Boeing, to answer your question. I do not know if it trades on the market exchanges, but I am familiar with their work. The idea is to move towards less solar dependence (= less intereference from solar cicumstances) as well as a more stabilized power system that is lighter.
Subject: Re: Appreciate Comment
Date: Sat, Feb 21, 1998 09:21 EST
From: Readware
Message-id: <19980221142101.JAA24333@ladder03.news.aol.com>
I am aware of the IBD article. Its question is: Can satellites last long enough so that they can generate enough money to pay for their replacement constellation. Can G* generate $2.5 billion by year 2002, if it starts in 1999, to pay for the replacement constellation required to continue its telephony service beyond 2005?
1. It has to generate that net cash, and that requires it has the subscriber base to do so. It will have that subscriber base. Pace the IBD article, that is not a note of sheer optimism. As the notion of mobile satcom telephony has moved to construction and then launching, commercial and telco partner surveys have shown an increase in user demand numbers. Long ago I posted on this board, how those demand numbers were reached. The telco
surveys for user demand are a continual project, and the numbers have grown. The optimism of five years ago that a system like G* would have the users to pay for it is less an optimism today and more a business condition. I do not believe that anyone familiar with the situation doubts that the market will be there anymore. There were doubts four years ago.
2. There are technological developments to lengthen LEO usefulness, and facilitate their production more rapidly and at lower costs. The next generation of LEOs will not cost what the first did, nor will the launch costs as much. Industry indications are that within 5 years the costs will have been reduced by some 40%.
3. As for Teledesic, it has gone through three transmogrifications. The latest comments are that it will cost $20 billion. Teledesic will need to be substantialy redesigned to be a commercial success. That begins with cutting the cost to some $6-7 billion from the $20 billion its current design requires.
Subject: Re: CyberStar
Date: Sat, Feb 21, 1998 21:52 EST
From: Readware
Message-id: <19980222025200.VAA20648@ladder03.news.aol.com>
Satellite '98 was not a conference like a Wall Street conference. It is an industry one, held every year, whose primary purpose is awarding the Satellite Executive of the Year Award (this year it was Iridium World's Robert Kinzie-- both Iridium and Motorola got very good press). The satellite press was there for a Q&A with Loral on the Alcatel news. This was the day after the Comsat rumors about Loral-Comsat. Comsat would have conceivably added to
Loral's South American coverage, but Comsat is a quasi government buracracy, so... There are also seminars, this year one about "Satellite Basics", e.g. I believe C-Span may have televised parts of the conference-- at least they had cameras there.
Ironic-- the evening Robert Kinize received the award was the announcement of Europe*Star of Loral-Alcatel.
Timing.
Subject: Japanese Satellite Disaster
Date: Sun, Feb 22, 1998 18:47 EST
From: Readware
Message-id: <19980222234700.SAA13659@ladder02.news.aol.com>
Some two weeks after I had posted Japanese intents to become a force in the upcoming generation of satellites, their COMETS program satellite (which had 5th generation capabilities to be tested) failed to reach orbit after its H2 launch yesterday.
The cause of the failure is totally unknown.
A major setback to the Japanese effort-- probably 18 months, as well as $330 million for the satellite and $2.4 billion of the Japanese government's funds.
The next 5th generation prototype will be that launched by Lockheed Martin in 1999.
Subject: Launch Rumors, Last time
Date: Sun, Feb 22, 1998 19:46 EST
From: Readware
Message-id: <19980223004601.TAA04596@ladder03.news.aol.com>
To the 4 emails: the Globalstar LEOs are fully functional and operational soon to enter full orbit for a 6-7 year useful satellite life.
Every successful launch has a gradation of technological nuisances that come within manageable tolerance parameters.
There are no component failures on the 4 G* LEOs. The thermal deficiency (and that seems to be the Internet rumor that has gone from here to the Southwest Indian Ridge) was corrected quite quickly. It is not the first such deficiency in a satellite after a successful launch, and will not be the last.
From the rumors (and I have no idea where they originate) one would think that this G* launch was the first launch Loral in its 30 year history ever had and that no one there ever thought of a possible initial heating deficiency that may have to be corrected.
There was an Orbital launch in early February where the GEO ended up in the wrong attitude. Orbital ground control corrected the problem from the ground about 14 days later, and now the satellite is on its way to full orbital life. The launch was a success. These things happen. Nothing even approximating this happened in the G* launch.
I don't mind the emails about the launch, but when the company tells you the launch was a success-- believe them.
Subject: Globalstar India & the FIPB
Date: Tue, Feb 24, 1998 00:11 EST
From: Readware
Message-id: <19980224051101.AAA03027@ladder03.news.aol.com>
The India FIPB (Foreign Investment Promotion Board) will be deciding this week on the fixed site terminals investment for Globalstar. This fixed site telephony will be GEO originated, and not mobile sat originated. At the "China Telecom 2000" upcoming in Washington Ming Louie of Globalstar Asia will be discussing fixed-site business, as well as mobile, in China. The China MPT has already ordered fixed site systems from Globalstar. And Globalstar
Africa is pursuing fixed-site licensing now in a number of the countries in Africa.
Subject: Re: Globalstar India & the FIPB
Date: Tue, Feb 24, 1998 12:51 EST
From: Readware
Message-id: <19980224175100.MAA03396@ladder03.news.aol.com>
On the question of who gets the GEO telephony revenues for Globalstar, I will have that question answered after the CE Unterberg conference on 5-6 March. Right now I do not know how the revenues would be booked.
Subject: GEO-Telephony
Date: Thu, Feb 26, 1998 19:40 EST
From: Readware
Message-id: <19980227004001.TAA16058@ladder03.news.aol.com>
The G* GEO-telephony potential fixed site business/revenues in India and China will be far easier to read once I find out from Alcatel how many fixed site terminals they are being contracted to outfit. It is Alcatel that is providing these sites. That indication will not be available till probably September of this year.
For the moment, the Indian authorities asked Globalstar to consider providing fixed site telephony in June of last year. Globalstar had the primary intention of mobile satcom telephony for Indian commercial users though Hyundai (G*'s contracted telco in India) in competition to Iridium World. It is on the mobile satcom business that the Indian FIPB has met this week.
However, medical, educational, transportation, and land barging interests in India-- who are not being served by Hundai, incidentally-- in hundreds of municipalities throughout India are now potential customers for G*'s fixed site business, an effort not serviceable by Iridium. This is the doing of the Indian governemnt.
Fixed site will not need the $750 phone, nor will the cost of use (while it has yet to be set) be anywhere near the mobile satcom phone cost. There will not be the retailer and PSTN markups that mobile users will bear. It has not yet been determined by G* (its partners included) and Loral to whom the revenues from fixed site telpephony will go. However, looking at how it is to be provided (by SSL GEOs), one would think that Space Systems Loral
(Loral, instead of G*) is going to be the greater beneficiary of those revenues and earnings than G*.
As for the suggestion that India will attempt to restrict CDMA, or monitor it somehow: not so. Globalstar will not provide business in any country where limitations on its technology beyond those imposed by the ITU exist. The same holds for other satcom telephony providers. Globalstar is in the very advantageous position of its services being needed more by various countries than it needing any particular country's business.
Next Thursday and Friday G* will be hosted at CE Unterberg in New York City, along with Iridium and ICO Global-- as well as Hughes, Orion, Comsat, CD Radio, Loral, Cyberstar, Teledesic, ViaSat and Gilat. After that a more precise picture of satcom business developments should be available. Bernard Schwartz is to give the Keynote address.
Subject: Re: Indian Follow-up/market share
Date: Thu, Feb 26, 1998 23:57 EST
From: Readware
Message-id: <19980227045700.XAA01612@ladder03.news.aol.com>
As for the poster's comment on G* brand loyalty: while you are correct that G* is a wholesaler only of satcom time, I think the poster is referring to the fact that the phones being used say "Globalstar". He is probably thinking of the consumer seeing the Globalstar name on his phone, though you are right that the local telco will be the retailer.
Subject: Iridium "200 Beam"
Date: Fri, Feb 27, 1998 00:10 EST
From: Readware
Message-id: <19980227051000.AAA03482@ladder03.news.aol.com>
In answer to your question: it is not really a "secret" that Iridium has been working on the "200 beam spot" to overcome intramural interference in buildings for their phones. Iridium (Motorola) has been working on that since November I believe, and the field tests indicate a high degree of interference dimunition-- but not total elimination of the interference. To eliminate totally interference would require a fleet of probably 1000 LEOs at least--
the 200 beams/LEO are meant to compensate for the fact that the constellation has 66 LEOs only.
As for satellite optical laser delivery: the Celestri development on optical lasers is really in a formative stage only. While it has contracted with Oilerkon to develop optical laser intersatellite links, optical laser inter-satellite communications do require some US military clearance. There are diffciulties ahead then for the outright and unfettered development of the use of the technology for commercial use, although I am sure that those
difficulties will be overcome.
However, you should go to the Celestri board on AOL, or Iridium board to ask the people there these questions. |
