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To: Mr. Adrenaline who wrote (4188)	8/9/1998 5:07:00 PM
From: Rocket Scientist	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10852

Mr A, IMO SkyStation is not trying to do what I+, G* or even TDesic plan to do. It seems to me that they want to provide the "last mile" of high bandwidth pipe in urban areas. I don't know the economics of replacing copper in high pop density areas, but this may be an economically attractive way to do it. Sky Station is definitely not for voice, and I don't think it has aspirations to provide a stand alone global network like TDesic. I suspect it wants to skim the cream off of TDesic's (and Skybridge's (?)) market by serving urban users. Regards, RS

To: Mr. Adrenaline who wrote (4188)	8/9/1998 7:35:00 PM
From: Reagan DuBose	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10852

Mr. A: I'm also not convinced this hound will ever hunt, but some of your comments are at odds with the published Sky Station plans. They go to some lengths to compare strengths of the various proposed wireless systems (geo, leo, stratospheric, ground based), and have identified (if I understand correctly) the strength of the stratospheric approach to be high capacity coverage in high density areas. I think they are content to leave the low density coverage to the satellite systems. So, I don't believe SS intends competing with either Iridium or GlobalStar with respect to earth surface area covered. They do intend to compete (exceed?) in the total system capacity for population served. The SS web site shows a graphic with coverage diameters labeled as follows: 75KM - UAC, 150KM - SAC, 600KM - RAC. I could not find a definition of "UAC", "SAC", "RAC", but it looked like some level of service was planned for all three areas. The UAC area would have minimum line of sight elevation angles of about 15 degrees, with lower elevation angles for the other areas. All intentions and plans aside, the technical and practical challenges seem formidable, indeed! It will be interesting, at the very least, to see how they perform during testing and rollout (if it ever gets that far). Reagan