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Technology Stocks : NEXTEL -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ken Benes who wrote (4928)	2/28/1998 9:48:00 PM
From: John F. Dowd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10227

Dear Ken: The guy you speak of is not Bob Edwards is it? Because he also built a LI centered paging company called LIN or something which he later sold to some bigger fish whose name began with a K ( I think he owned some much larger media conglomerate) and which full name escapes me at the present? If it is the same guy he, (like McCaw's Cellular), built the whole thing around pagers otherwise there would have been no reason for the towers.On an interesting side note The Long Island Expressway was also home to a pipeline which made the owner thereof very wealthy in that it allowed his oil to be shipped at great efficiency from his Northville depot to the city market. This same lone man later built a pipeline parallel to the Panama Canal that allowed super tankers from the Pacific (who could not pass through the canal) to disgorge their cargo to waiting tankers at the other end. Indeed the LI "Expressway" was much more efficient as a common carrier right of way than it was as a conduit of autos.A little Saturday night trivia. Regarding Al's aversion to debt I am surprised that he doesn't understand the nature of a capital intensive industry and it's need for debt. I know of not one common carrier or utility that was able to thrive and grow quickly without the leverage of debt. I am also surprised that Al doesn't appreciate, as an equity holder, that as long as the venture works towards positive cash flow that it is a lever that works to the advantage of an equity holder - rather like margin levers the winnings of a good stock picker. Indeed if one is sqeemish then NXTL is not the place to be. If Al is risk averse I would recommend MSFT or INTC both have near monopolies and zero debt. They are both excellent companies. NXTL is the next of this type of company: ah but who would have thought that in the days when no one ever heard of MSFT and INTC. On the subject of olefactory sensitivity management can't have too great an odor; look what they have done so far. Long live NXTL. Regards, JF Dowd