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


To: Joe Brown who wrote (3159)2/26/1999 10:22:00 PM
From: djane  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 29987
 
Hey, just trying to get you to use more than the usual 5% of your brain :-). How about a direct satellite connection to our brains on at all times with SI mandatory (so we can avoid such barbaric actions such as typing...)
As an info junkie (not really a techie, don't shoot me -- I love the technical posts), I just post the good, the bad, the everything related to G*, I* and such.
Glad to see G* do well on a bad market day. Part of my investment thesis for G* in 1999 is that it should do well irrespective of the the general market direction. Rotation our way from overvalued large cap techs and internet fluff.



To: Joe Brown who wrote (3159)2/26/1999 10:36:00 PM
From: djane  Respond to of 29987
 
Iridium Canada Rolls Out [G* mentions throughout]

wirelessweek.com

From the Feb. 22, 1999 issue of Wireless Week


By James Careless

OTTAWA--Canada may be a natural market for mobile satellite phones. After all, most of the
country is rugged and remote, far from either wireline or cellular/personal communications services
coverage. Phone service in Canada is focused on the heavily populated U.S.-Canada border and
along major transportation routes.

Iridium Canada launched service here last November.

An investor in Iridium LLC­the global consortium underwriting the Iridium project­Iridium Canada
is co-owned by BCE Mobile Communications, Bell Canada International and Motorola Canada.
As an investor, it has access to Iridium's constellation of 66 low-Earth orbit satellites.

Iridium Canada hopes to attract "a wide mix" of clients, said Rob Eisses, Iridium product manager
for Infosat Communications, which is marketing Iridium services across Canada. That mix includes
"international business clients who are traveling around the world for the high-tech sector," Eisses
said, plus people in oil and gas exploration, mining, forestry and national parks. In addition, Infosat
wants to attract jet-setting executives who want to stay in touch wherever they are.

To attract these people, Iridium is avoiding the mass-market route. [Hello?] Instead, it advertises in travel
and trade magazines and on billboards located near airports: anywhere where movers and shakers
might be found.

According to Eisses, there are enough of them out there to make the venture worthwhile. "Over
the next five years, we estimate that there's potentially 100,000 users for the product," he said.
However, right now Iridium's subscriber base is substantially smaller. As of the start of 1999, it
stood at about 150.

These users pay a pretty penny for their phones, which Motorola Inc. and Kyocera Corp.
manufacture. Each handset costs more than $3,000. Airtime rates range from $1.67 to $8.67 a
minute.

Because of these rates, Iridium Canada President Maurice Rompré doesn't expect the service to
become a consumer commodity. "It's a very niche market application," he said. Given this,
Rompré doesn't expect handset prices to drop due to volume sales either. That's because "there's
no mass-market considerations for the price of the equipment," he added.


However, Rompré is concerned [I'm sure - $1.40 break-even] about the impending launches of two more global satellite
systems­Globalstar LP and ICO Global Communications. "I don't think that the finance market is
ready to support three systems," he said. "Market surveys are showing that we do have potential
users to support two systems on a global basis," but not three.


Globalstar will be the first challenger when it launches this fall. If Globalstar maintains its Web site
promise to sell handsets at $1,000, Iridium could find itself in serious trouble.
Meanwhile, ICO's
impact is harder to assess. It's slated to launch here in 2000.

Please send comments and suggestions on this Web site to jcollins@chilton.net
Wireless Week, 600 S. Cherry St., #400, Denver, CO 80246
Voice: 303-393-7449, Fax: 303-399-2034
Published by Cahners Business Information
© Copyright 1999. All rights reserved.



To: Joe Brown who wrote (3159)2/26/1999 10:45:00 PM
From: djane  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 29987
 
Short argument against G*/I* (via yahoo thread)
[Hey, I post it because he/she is the first short in recent memory to cobble together a substantive argument with a modicum of research behind it. Any thoughts?]

Top > Business and
Finance > Stocks > Services > Communications
Services > GSTRF (Globalstar Telecommun.)
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To Potential Buyers of this
soon-to-be extinct DoDo G*:
by: DoDoFeaster
4459 of 4461
The business models of G* & I were designed before the widescale implementation
of IP telephony over fiber was envisioned. The advent of companies like GBLX
globalcrossing.bm

and other fiber projects around the world
submarinesystems.com

create low cost alternatives to G* & I that were not envisioned at the time these
business models were developed & sold to investors. These low cost alternatives for
long haul IP telephony can be linked to low cost wireless transceivers that can reach
the end users targetted by G* & I at 70-80% BELOW the prices that G*'s demand
analysis expected to charge when they thought they would have a monopoly in certain
markets & a duopoly in others. The advent of low-cost fiber shatters the basic
assumptions that BOTH these companies based their original projections to both
bond & equity investors.

As result, the market has begun to realize that - EVENTHOUGH THE
TECHNOLOGY WORKS & THE BUSINESS WILL BE VIABLE - they will have
serious cashflow shortfalls. IRIDF investors are already catching on & bailing in
droves

cbs.marketwatch.com
yhoo&dist=yhoo

G* is NEXT: The idiots on this board have cheered IRIDF's demise, but because of
their EMOTIONAL attachment to their losing positions have failed to see that they
are next.

G* business model projections (which is the low cost of the two) call for them to
charge .47/minute WHOLESALE to their distributors who then expect a mark up
over the wholesale price. In three years the market will beare no more than .20-.25
for their services & they will take that because they have taken out more debt than
expected to fund cost overruns. The result is that equity shareholders of G* will be
wiped out - that's why they had to do an equity issue at these depressed prices - no
more subordinated debt buyers will accept the credit risk here. Credit analysis shows
what the equity buyers are missing: G* will be like the Chunnel in existence to service
debt & debt only in perpetuity.

Savvy institutions realize this and thus have not stepped in to buy at these otherwise
bargain prices. Note the plethora of upgrades over the past months that one birdbrain
on this board posts. Note that 1 month after almost every bullish pronouncement, the
stock was lower. Note that the birdbrains fail to see this...

The shareholders of G* will be wiped out completely in 2 years and thus they will be
extinct - I have dubbed G* & I DODOs. I have been am avid SHORTER of these
stock from time-to-time & - as history shows - have FEASTED on the naive hopes
of the longs. Thus I am the DoDoFeaster. Simple, no?

Yet when you read the messages on these boards you see that the birdbrains on this
board don't quite get that they are the DoDos I refer to. That - dear potential G* & I
long - indicates the level of intellectual prowess to be found in this flock.

A great example of how predictable these birdbrain DoDo G-longs are is their current
euphoria over the deadcat bounce the stock experienced today - I predicted both the
bounce (see #4376 yesterday) and the birdbrains laughable declarations of
vindication. Their messages are nearly verbatim to what I predicted they would say.

The current bounce is driven by short-covering by my fellow shorts. It will continue to
about $18-$20 range & then I will short it again & cover again below $10 because
this time the shorts will have covered.

Read the DoDoFeaster's post & read the responses - if my arguments don't make
sense, then good luck on the path to extinction. G* equity will cease to exist.

p.s.
For a rising phoenix instead of a dying DoDO, check out IIXC & see the difference
both in the fundamentals & the performance.

Posted: Feb 26 1999 10:09PM EST as a reply to: Msg 4458 by Jimmy_Grimaldi
Replies: View Replies to this Message