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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Globalstar Telecommunications Limited GSAT -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Snowshoe who wrote (2034)	9/13/1998 2:41:00 AM
From: JGoren	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

G* phones will be different. QPE phones don't "talk" to satellite.

To: Snowshoe who wrote (2034)	9/13/1998 5:53:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

GregM, as JGoren wrote, no cdmaOne or any other phones which are now available will work with Globalstar. Qualcomm has produced samples, but production is not yet underway. Since a terrestrial only cdmaOne phone is not particularly cheap, some people would prefer to get a Globalstar phone early, despite it being bigger, to use in terrestrial only mode until the Globalstar system is operational later in 1999. Although it would be better to have 24 hour coverage, many people would like to be able to use their handset even if there are only 30 satellites, which would mean waiting until a satellite appeared, as shown on the signal strength indicator, then making a call which could be up to about 10 minutes long after which the satellite would have gone out of sight over the horizon again and another satellite might not be in view. Qualcomm/Globalstar should go ahead and start selling them early in 1999. Globalstar should make service available even if it is very sporadic. Informed people are capable of making choices. They are not all Disneyland cotton wool babes in the wood. Once the service is available, the demand for handsets might far exceed supply [since there is no evidence that either Qualcomm or Globalstar are going to vary p----s to maximize demand, revenue and profit]. So they should get production underway sooner rather than too late. There has been a one year delay over the past year or two, so they have got a good opportunity to produce some really whizzbang super duper little models, on time and cheap. Chips are improving and multimode, multiband chips are becoming available enabling very useable and economic handsets. A few days post-script* and things don't seem so bad. The sun is up, so I'm off to a Wave Function at Piha, to watch the surf, walk the beach and hills, contemplate life the universe and Zenits. There are a LOT of lives going to be saved once GPS Globalstar is operational. No more grid searches at huge expense with attendant loss of life. We had another 5 die a week or two ago when a light aircraft ditched in the ocean after making mayday calls and the rescue people thought they'd said 30 miles offshore instead of 13 so were delayed up to 20 minutes or so. After an hour in cold water, about 5 had died, several were saved, but a father let go of his unconscious 7 year old [from hypothermia, the cause of death for all], while holding on to his two other children. A lady floated without a life jacket nearby for an hour but died 10 minutes before rescue. Very sad, very frustrating for rescuers. The poor father was of course in poor condition himself and would not have known that a cold 7 year old, unconscious, is not necessarily dead. But perhaps the sheer effort of holding the other two was too difficult. I don't know. A GPS handset would have been nice. The rescuers: "Okay folks, where are you? Can you see the plane? Actually, don't bother, we have your co-ordinates now and we'll be there in 10 minutes with a liferaft - we'll try not to drop it on your heads. It's got a nice cup of tea in it and a cdma2000 Web tv, so you can watch your rescue live! Have a nice day. Love, Qualcomm" Sadly, Mqurice * Post-script = after Zenit, 'AZ' for short.