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

To: Sawtooth who wrote (2089)	3/3/1998 11:32:00 AM
From: Snake	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10852

Globalstar article in today's San Francisco Chronicle. Here is a link to the online version: sfgate.com Also, in San Jose Mercury news a couple of weeks back, Cyberstar had big advertisement in the classifieds looking for people. All technical positions though.

To: Sawtooth who wrote (2089)	3/3/1998 11:35:00 AM
From: Geoff	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10852

Alright, I finally bought my GSTRF! I can now happily claim to be fully invested in the LOR biz plan. Time for me to go stop by the GSTRF message board to see what's going on.... Also, Red Herring features Globalstar as a top performer for 98 - redherring.com ================= Subject: Satellite Broadband Connectivity Market Growth Date: Sun, Mar 1, 1998 23:53 EST From: Readware Message-id: <19980302045300.XAA28582@ladder02.news.aol.com> To reply to the email: I am not concerned at all about the recent increase in announcements from satcom providers regarding their bids and projects as it relates to Loral. "Do these all mean Loral has competition, that it will lose business? And what of the Intelsat news?" (1) Intelsat is going public this year, so I am not surprized at their stream of annoucements before coming to the US markets. The timing is to maximize awareness of their enterprizes. And don''t forget Intelsat in January of 1998 contracted Loral to build it a satellite. Further, the announcements they have made are not indicative of revenues unsurpassed. (2) As for the increased activities and news from other satcom providers: some 18 months ago I had suggested the comment to a poster's question here that 1999 would be the year of major cash revenues for Loral when I had opined on Loral's growth after 1998. I stated "wait till you see the business that is coming for satellite companies that year". And so now the dam is beginning to burst... Skybridge has stated it sees a $34 billion market for satellite broadband in 2003; Celestri some $60 billion by 2006. These numbers do not include narrowband (G, Iridium World, ICO). Nor do they include C band (DTH) Combined, by 2004 (six years away) just satellite narrowband and broadband looks to be about $45 billion/year and growing at a 25% rate for the foreseeable future after that-- perhaps three or four years. There will not be capacity to meet that demand. To meet the $45 billion demand will be Hughes (Spaceway), Loral (C and G* plus EuropeStar), Lockheed Astrolink, Alcatel Skybridge, Celestri, GE Americom, Intelsat, and part of ComSat. By early 2004 Russia, China, and India are expected to be initiating accelerating demand for their data needs, as in the Russia project Gonets, China's opening up its commerce to long awaited high speed data access. The numbers for these three countries have not been factored into the demand projected-- although Teledesic has been looking at all rural areas for their market in 2004 and beyond. Can Boeing-Orbital Sciences launch 288 satellites...? So the short answer to whether one needs be concerned about Loral losing business because of the plethora of competitor annoucements in the Winter of 1998 is, No. From 1998 the narrowband-broadband (excludes C Band) market will grow (combined) probably 900% ($5 billion to $45 billion). From here it looks like the problem will be that satcom providers will not be able to move fast enough as a group to satisfy the demand a rapidly growing world population is making. Competition to Loral is not the problem. Subject: Re: Red Herring Date: Tue, Mar 3, 1998 09:19 EST From: Readware Message-id: <19980303141900.JAA04124@ladder03.news.aol.com> G can bypass the local telcos, Ajit, but that is not their business plan. Their margins remain at 87-89% only by local telco "pick-up" of their signal. There is no commercial need for G* to bypass the telcos. Iridium's business plan is to present itself as a "cannot fail" telephony system if all ground systems worlwide failed. Their market is not ICO's or G's market: they plan on service only for the "three-suit, silk tie". Their ramp-up for 1998 looks to be well-ahead of their initial expectations. As for being a system that will provide telephony in case of terrestrial communications breakdown (I assume a nuclear war, or mega-terrestrial catastrophe is being envisioned), some Wall Street wizards have offered that Iridium has an advantage over gateway-dependent satcom systems in that gateways can be destroyed or sabotaged, and Iridium satellites can remain "above the fray". One Wall Street analyst I spoke to was of the opinion that Iridium satellites could not be touched by anything hostile. He should think again: if anyone believes that satellites cannot be incapacitated while in orbit by military means, let them continue to think so. They think incorrectly. As for PCS: you forgot to mention the possible emergence of fiber, which I addressed a few weeks ago-- "Project Oxygen" if you recall. To get a good view of communications systems demand worlwide you need to travel extensively, get a lay of the land in different infrastructure-starved countries, see the terrain of these countries, identify the commercial routes that can never have land-based telephony infrastructure, know the political interventions along the way. You simply cannot "read" comments from various observers in different publications. That their opinions differ greatly shows they do not stand before endless stretches of sheer numerical ceritude. Personal communications systems growth (PCS) is less percentagewise than what had been anticipated just two years ago. Indeed, this is one reason why Iridium World executives are so extensively optimistic about the prospects for their service. You need to talk with those who do the actual in field "spade work" for communications systems worldwide. If anything, the expected demand for satcom delivered communications is now accelerating, rather than flattening out. The success of both Globalstar and Iridium World, as opposed to other proposed satcom systems, is going to derive from their advertising push and ability to meet the changing technologies expected to come from consumers. As for "Red Herring" having G on its "best performers list", that is always nice for a G* shareholder to see. But G*'s price performance is going to follow on its business plan execution, not a magazine's portents.