Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Joe Brown who wrote (3018)	2/19/1999 10:37:00 PM
From: METMAN	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Jack, sorry, I missed your post. Thanks for filling in with more information. -metman

To: Joe Brown who wrote (3018)	2/19/1999 11:08:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Iridium woes Jack, isn't this still in the 'teething troubles' category? The Kyocera phone seems bad - single mode = Iridium only and they give you a normal cellphone for round town. I wonder if they work on the same phone number? That is a bad design. When will we know whether the slow selling of handsets is due to lack of handsets or lack of customers? If it is lack of customers, then this is starting to look like a disaster of huge proportions. You have confirmed that the handsets work very well and the calls are clear as a bell, to the extent that they are better than cdmaOne terrestrial but that was measuring on a different scale or something. Anyway, the voice quality, connection rate, dropped call rate and general functioning as a phone left you delighted. That generally seems to be true, but then we get other comment saying things are not quite that good. In any event, it is working well enough to sell. Dragonfly said they aren't designed for calling from a mall, Message 7875801 but when you read the comments by that journalist, he made the call from the middle of a mall carpark, which I suppose means with a clear view of the sky with a big horizon. Not quite the same as using a Globalstar phone in scuba diving. Dragonfly also complained that the guy was saying the paging was too expensive - but the point was really just to tell people the price in an interesting way [as I read it] not to say that there was something wrong with the price for those who need the paging service. The banks will only be able to raise their interest rates, not close down the system. There is too much value in it and alternative financiers will step up to compete. Assuming of course that these really are just teething troubles and a shortage of handsets. I don't think you'll see cheap handsets and cheap minutes. Motorola wants to make money! They do that by selling handsets at a good price. If demand is pathetic, the solution will be dear handsets and cheap minutes, which is not quite the same as dear shaving devices and cheap blades because you only shave once a day no matter how cheap the blades. With Iridium minutes, if they are 10 cents, you'll use the phone constantly and millions of people will pay $3000 for a handset, so subscriber growth would still be handset production constrained so there would be no need to lower handset prices. At the end of the year [or sooner, depending on handset demand] when the price starts rising as the constellation fills, they would have had their money's worth out of the handset and they could sell it to somebody else if they don't like the increasing price. Then handset and minute prices would find a nice happy balance. Minute prices would increase and handset prices reduce as handset demand slowed. Hopefully the balance would be high enough so that Iridium investors can use their credit cards with gay abandon [to coin a phrase which is probably not the done thing in the AIDS era]. But there is nothing that can be done [other than controlling the relatively minor costs such as advertising] to change the system and the subscribers will determine the price of the handsets and service. Too high and they'll keep their wallets shut. I'm looking forwards to gloating, but that's premature. That's gloating at Motorola and the idea that 'Rich businessmen would not worry about the price', not the misfortune of Iridium shareholders who believed the promotion of Iridium. Maurice