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

To: JMD who wrote (4269)	8/14/1998 4:45:00 PM
From: Geoff	Respond to of 10852

The list of visitors to the FAQ continues to surprise me. People from Sanford C. Bernstein, Oracle, Microsoft, Schwab and the CBOE! The CBOE, that's a wild one.

To: JMD who wrote (4269)	8/18/1998 12:22:00 AM
From: Mr. Adrenaline	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10852

Surfer M- Seemed like you asked for my spin on I* not too long ago, and I said I'd get back to you... Now I can't find the original post. If I dreamed it, here is my spin anyway.... I do hear I* rumors constantly. Since these are only rumors, it would be unproductive to repeat them. But. After you hear the same basic thing so many times, and from so many different sources, you start to believe it. I am under the impression that the I* satellite is not a strong, robust satellite. That doesn't imply that the I* business plan is doomed by any means. But it certainly doesn't help it, either. And, I have never had a favorable impression of the I* business plan. I think that the number of minutes they have to sell per year is insufficient to recover their initial investment. It is as simple as that. Add to that the cost of maintaining the constellation that could be deficient and you could have disaster. No "solid" info here, for sure, but this is my overall impression. Somewhere, not too far back on this thread we looked at the number of minutes they could sell per year. If memory serves, it was one billion. Now that they are saying that they could wholesale them at $1 each, a billion minutes doesn't sound like a whole lot. The above does not even address the problems they are having with testing their constellation. I keep hearing rumors of 1second+ voice delays and call completion problems. Space switching is a challenging problem, no doubt. As long as there is no hardware deficiency, and I have heard nothing to suggest that there is, then time and talent will see this through. That's is my perspective from my admittedly biased vantage point. I do hope I* gets their system together. I want G* to trounce them, to be sure, but on the merits of their respective business plans, not because of hardware and/or software problems. Mr A