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

To: Steven Rachbach who wrote (2736)	2/1/1999 10:54:00 AM
From: Valueman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29987

Steve: The studies are still being done, many with even higher estimates of demand. Estimates they remain however. The studies are all meaningless when you get right down to it. If you look at the emerging markets, no doubt many of the telecom development projects(excluding G) have ground to a halt. That is a plus. That's a bit of delay that coincides with G's own "problems". Perhaps a recovery in the economic fortunes of many markets will follow the rollout of G's commercial service. I think one has to take a "big picture" view of the world, of telecom demand, of services that are provided and will be provided, and one will see that there is still ample opportunity for a G service. Rates may have to be tweaked a bit in certain areas, but an equilibrium will be established no doubt. I still think the developed world will see a lot of use. If I travel 5 miles west of my house, no service of any type exists. There is a lot of open space in this country, in Canada, and elsewhere that is begging for G* fill in service. I will be a subscriber---someday! P.S.--When I see the studies come across the wire, I will post them. They trickle in every now and then.

To: Steven Rachbach who wrote (2736)	2/1/1999 1:45:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Coverage and market position Globalstar can't go wrong in the long run even if they try some more. Demand is 5 billion people who will use it 20 minutes a day. But that is at zero cost. So we then need to shrink that demand as we increase the handset price and minute price to cover production costs then add a big, fat dollop of profit until we get to an optimum where we make maximum money. Too expensive and Globalstar will be like Iridium - "Wow, what an amazing service. I bet those who can afford it just love it! Oh well, I guess my company isn't one where rich stupid businessmen don't have a clue what it costs them." Actually, in fairness, part of the slow growth is because they can't get handsets for which there is an absurdly long queue with customers having to give golf balls or other bribery to store managers to put them higher on the list of those privileged enough to get a phone. Having money isn't enough - they won't let people bid a higher price. Don't worry about buildout of terrestrial cdmaOne, cdma2000 and GSM as competitors. They can NEVER compete. From the previous post: ---------------------------------------------------------- Digital cell phones are sweeping the nation, but they come with a catch: spotty service resulting from half-built networks. That means callers with digital phones may find themselves losing their signal or, even worse, not getting any signal at all. There's a short-term solution: dual-band phones that work on both digital and old-fashioned analog networks. But they often cost more to buy than single-band phones, and they use up batteries faster. The industry says it is doing what it can to improve service, but it has a lot to do. Creating an infrastructure to support seamless digital coverage is estimated to cost at least $5 billion. Community opposition to new transmission towers must be overcome in many areas. The result: Seamless coverage probably will take years to complete. ------------------------------------------------------------------ They say $5bn to provide seamless coverage! That's just for the USA and they don't include out-in-the-sticks in that figure. So for global coverage, they will need $100bn and that won't do it. They'll still miss all the really rural areas. They won't cover oceans. Or Mount Everest. Actually, there are so many wanna-be mountaineers on Mt Everest that they probably will, but you know what I mean. Mount Cook won't be covered and if THAT is then the top of the Fox Glacier won't be. Or the Milford Track. The whole Globalstar network can be built for less than $5bn. Including gateways. That would even provide a lot of handsets. Once the handset technology gets small enough, which is happening really quickly, the preferred handset will be a Globalstar one. Check out the latest in Qualcomm ASICs for being small, powerful and battery efficient [and people think the New Paradigm is a lot of nonsense - no wonder it's so easy to make money on the stockmarket = people don't see the amazing stuff coming, so they leave all these wonderful companies lying around at bargain basement prices]. Second constellation Globalstar minutes will be about 5 cents per minute [cost to Globalstar] - as a wild guess. How about 2 cents per minute. We can sell those minutes for 10 cents and make a fortune. Once we have covered the cost, it is pure profit because the minutes exist whether they are used or not. There is no production cost, unlike another litre of oil or water. We can see the demand for terrible terrestrial service at 20 cents per minute, so imagine the demand for Globalstar at that price. As Valueman says, the market research is bunk. They ask people something like "Would you buy a phone which you could use everywhere if it cost you $800 and $1 per minute? No...okay, how about if it cost $400 and 50 cents per minute?" Unfortunately, people don't really know whether they would buy one or not. We can guess about as accurately by thinking about how much money people have and how much they'll like using it once they see them around the place and see their friends or other business people with one. How much they use terrestrial service at $1, 50 cents, 20 cents, 10 cents. Demand would be huge at $1000 for a handset and minutes at 20 cents. Maybe 10 million people. That would use all the minutes, so we'd need to raise the minute price as demand grows so that it all balances out. Building more constellations once the per minute price gets high enough. That's the best approach. Unfortunately, that's not how they are going to do it. They are going to build a system, charge a lot and only use a few of the minutes available and only sell a few handsets at a too cheap price. Just like Iridium but substantially cheaper so it will get a lot more customers - since not that many people will worry about polar coverage and way out on the ocean. That still makes a big load of profit for Globalstar. Maurice