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

To: Rocket Scientist who wrote (2946)	2/12/1999 9:05:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Handset cost Iridium and Globalstar handsets both seem to have the same amount of gizzardry and things which cost money, so I've never understood why an Iridium handset needs to be multithousands of dollars. My bet on Globalstar has nothing to do with the relative handset costs since I couldn't see that they need be different. My bet is to do with performance, minute costs and future technologies. Size does matter with handsets. These are still much too big, even for Texan cowboys, let alone 15 year old Japanese school girls. With the MSM3100, Silicon/Germanium chips and other CDMA wonders, the Globalstar handset should start shrinking and getting better battery life, even before the first constellation is up. As the second and third constellations are built, the second being at low altitude and the third at maybe 15,000 to provide coverage at weird places such as on a yacht between Easter Island and Tahiti, or at the South Pole, handsets will shrink dramatically as propagation distance drops on average to maybe as low as 400 km. CDMA by Qualcomm is so great that these extra constellations could just be popped into the sky and the handset would look for the closest satellite [well, the base stations would do it, but you know what I mean]. Out on a yacht, the low satellites wouldn't be in contact with a gateway as they fly over the ocean, so the high satellite would handle the call and send it to a gateway in Peru, New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii or somewhere. This is just my imagination of course, as I haven't seen any proposal from Globalstar to actually do this and it wouldn't happen until there were millions of subscribers; enough to justify high altitude satellites, which could contribute to capacity in the busy areas when they don't have much to do over the ocean or other weird places. They would also provide polar coverage. Just what on earth is going on with Iridium anyway? Are there handsets available or not? Does the system work or doesn't it? Is demand really as low as some people seem to say. Some of these things cannot be true. The 'lack of demand' suggestion seems to have dragged Globalstar down. Is there really lack of demand or is it a lack of handsets? If there is lack of demand at current prices, it doesn't mean there will be inadequate demand for Globalstar service, which will be much cheaper. People seem to believe [weirdly in my opinion] that they succeed or fail together. The fantasy that there were multi-millions of customers to fill all the systems at whatever price always was tripe. One system was always going to do best and make the most money and the worst would go bust or never get off the ground. Others would fall between the extremes. With 12 satellites up and humming, things are looking a bit more rosy for Globalstar. That is quarter of the first system. The share price seems to be due to a 'sell on the news' approach combined with 'omigod, Iridium isn't selling handsets and the markets are crashing'. If demand for Iridium is slow, it seems they should raise their handset prices and give away minutes. Same as Globalstar should plan to do from the outset. Expensive [= auction price] handsets, but 10 cent calling for the first two million customers for the first 12 months. Maurice PS: There seems to be some unhappiness with Iridium judging from the share price over the past 3 months... quote.yahoo.com