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

To: Valueman who wrote (3144)	2/26/1999 6:58:00 PM
From: David Wiggins	Respond to of 29987

Valueman, As a long time ATI shareholder, I have been 'chomping at the bits' to get this Globalstar effort 'off the ground'. Not only do the wireless providers want Globalstar service, they really need it. AT&T and Sprint 'one rate' plans are really putting the heat on for true, low-cost nationwide coverage. With Globalstar, Airtouch/Vodafone will not only match AT&T, they will start giving them the hurting they so richly deserve <ggg>. Call from ANYWHERE for one low rate. These guys are gonna leverage Globalstar to the max in US/Canada/Mexico/Japan/Australia/UK/etc. C'mon, in these places only, 3 million is a 'drop in the bucket' of demand, not to mention all those cool wireless phone booths which will be used constantly where no other service is available (lots of places) and could even compete on cost side by side with current phone booths in many places. I'm with Maurice, let's start using it NOW, even if it is for brief periods - hell, if it were free, or really cheap, I'd carry a 'tide table' so I'd know when the 'satellite tides come in'. What have they got to lose? Man, I'm sure a lot of people would get hooked on that. Regards, Dave

To: Valueman who wrote (3144)	2/26/1999 9:03:00 PM
From: djane	Respond to of 29987

tele.com. Lots of Ways to Think Global [Valueman, do you think VOD/ATI have any interest in LOR? See bottom. Just a thought, djane] teledotcom.com By Graham Finnie. Graham Finnie is research director at The Yankee Group Europe (Watford, U.K.). He can be reached over the Internet at graham@yankee.co.uk. What exactly is a global telco? As acquisition fever again grips the world's telecom industry and more operators lay claim to that "global" tag, this question deserves careful analysis. The idea has been thrown around ever since governments began dismantling exclusive national monopolies and franchises in about 1991. Aggressive expansionists like BT originally espoused a clear model: a global service provider targeting multinational corporations. For some, that's still the model. But for others, the global objectives are quite different. Notwithstanding the wishful thinking of some top execs, the structure of the new, supposedly global telecom services industry is still far from determined. Take these five different "global" operators, each of which can make a reasonable claim to a viable strategy: Equant, the airline industry network offshoot, may be closest to fulfilling the original conception of a global telco. Its target market is almost exclusively multinationals; it's filling out its product portfolio with higher value-added products such as systems integration and applications development; and it has the only real global network in the business, reaching almost every country. It hasn't got everything right, but Equant is one of the two to watch in the multinational service sector. MCI WorldCom is the other. Its huge "On Net" ad campaign makes it clear--the goal is to create what it calls a "local to global to local" network where it controls all facilities itself and provides all kinds of services over them. It's a compelling strategy, but it has an obvious flaw: MCI WorldCom isn't going to get every customer site "On Net" any time soon. Building infrastructure costs too much. Compared to a company like Equant, though, it has the advantage of several diverse revenue streams (wholesale and retail traffic, for instance). But both MCI WorldCom and Equant have one really big gap: mobile communications. That's a slot now claimed by Vodafone: Filled out with its Airtouch properties, Vodafone can reasonably call itself the first global mobile telco. Since national markets are largely discrete, the main issues here are whether skills acquired in one market can be transferred to another, and how far it can control partly owned national operators. The evidence is positive here: Skills are being transferred, and Vodafone can exercise its enormous muscle to determine next-generation standards and squeeze really good deals from suppliers. Others are moving into global niches that didn't exist before they began creating them. Global Crossing is focused on owning and operating fiber optic infrastructure, mostly transoceanic but also terrestrial (in Europe, for example). Its strategic premise: Fill pipes with inter- and intra-regional traffic and offer a single, seamless network infrastructure to those seeking a global bandwidth supplier. Low unit costs and high reliability could be a winning combination. Another, much smaller niche player is IXNet, which owns Saturn Global Networks. This relatively tiny company, with annualized sales of less than $100 million, can justifiably call itself a global telco. Its network stretches across three continents, and it has several thousand nodes. And its focus on meeting the needs of a very specific niche--financial services companies--has already made it a major player in cities such as London. None of the players I've mentioned is present in all sectors. Most have almost no play in the mobile sector, and the one that does (Vodafone) has almost no presence in data or Internet. Does this mean we can expect more consolidation? Probably. Everyone wants to be in high-growth sectors and will acquire properties in those sectors if they must. But it may also mean you should work out what you're good at and stick to it, whatever your size. Don't bet on a one-size-fits-all global telco emerging any time soon--and be skeptical about those who say they can create one. Copyright © 1999 tele.com All Rights Reserved.