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Microcap & Penny Stocks : DGIV-A-HOLICS...FAMILY CHIT CHAT ONLY!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: chirodoc who wrote (4732)	5/10/1998 7:19:00 AM
From: RocketMan	Read Replies (8) \| Respond to of 50264

I do not follow LCI, but it is seems to be one of numerous agressive long distance carriers established since the break up of AT&T and the deregularion of the US phone industry. The fact that they want to move overseas and develop internet telephony is another testament to the hypergrowth of this industry. Of course they want to do this -- everyone does. But if you look at who is succeeding, versus the wannabes, you will see that DGIV is doing quite well. Besides, LCI and those like LCI are having to change their current focus to accomplish this, and it is harder for a larger company to do this than for a small focused operation like DGIV. There are many LD carriers out there, including well-known names such as Sprint, MCI, etc. All of these companies compete vigorously for the LD market (and some local calling), although their individual rates are all over the place -- and much higher than what a dedicated VoIP carrier can charge and be profitable. Many here may not be aware that you can cut down substantially on your long distance calls by simply switching to one of these lesser known long distance carriers. Eventually, of course, we will all be using DGIV for our international calls :-) But in the meantime, for long distance calls within the country, you can save a heck of a lot over ATT/MCI/Sprint. Not to plug it, since I own no shares in it (don't even know if it is public), but I use UniDial. They have an 800 number, sign you up just like ATT, Sprint of MCI, except my calls are 9.9 cents per minute any time of day or night any day of the week. They also have calling cards, and crystal clear connections. No wonder. They use the same lines as everyone else uses, it is just a matter of leasing them, or of subleasing excess capacity. This is for national calls, international are substantially higher. Now, to the question you raised, is LCI a competitor to DGIV? The short answer is no. The long answer is not directly, and not within the markets that DGIV is currently exploiting. We are far from a shakeout of international VoIP companies, we are barely in the setup stage. Some day we may be worried about this type of competition, but right now the name of the game is market penetration, contracts, and agreements. This is what JC is doing, while others talk about what they are going to do, or attend conferences hoping to rub shoulders with the people doing it. Heck, JC is so busy doing it he does not even have time to rub shoulders with the wannabes :-) The reason is that DGIV is exploiting a niche market in international IP telephony, and working with their local telcos to enter into cooperative agreements. As we have said in many earlier posts, this is very difficult to do politically and economically. This is the niche maket that is expected to experience hypergrowth, as has also been mentioned before. Most countries are leery of their national telcos being swallowed up by large US firms, or exploited economically with little return flow. That is why companies like ATT are running into brick walls, and their top guys are leaving to sign up with smaller VoIP companies with a different business model. Companies like LCI and others, which are very good and growing companies, are more focused on the infrastructure and the networks to carry traffic. DGIV, on the other hand, is exploiting the traffic through these networks, by either using the networks themselves, providing gateways in and out of the networks, or even leasing dedicated lines to carry the traffic. In the latter they are most similar to more traditional companies like LCI, but DGIV seems to be doing this in a very select way, in markets that they can exploit without going head to head with the established players.