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

To: David Wiggins who wrote (3183)	2/27/1999 3:33:00 AM
From: Oliver Schonrock	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Dave Your respectful opinion is noted and you may convince me at some stage. A few further issues though: 1. From my experience in NZ -> market is minimal a few bush people on tracks but that's near zero minutes in the scheme of things, hence my bias I guess. Canada I can understand, US are the gaps really that bad? UK, Japan this surprises me. Countries about the size of NZ with between 20 and 50 times the population. What have the SPs been doing? If they are still asleep they are bound to wake up soon. Australia, yes but how many people really are living in the middle of nowhere a few thousand I think. 2. The US or Canada are the best examples for supporting your case. But firstly we have to ask ourselves two things (refer my earlier post to Drew). How many people experience gaps bad enough to need to change? How many of those will change in Three or five years? When answering this remember that for calls made without "clear view of the sky" they will be relying on AMPS, CDMA, GSM, TDMA and whatever else is around. In other words G* does not provide the seemless coverage that everyone in the US wants unless you walk out onto the front lawn to make your call in the rain. Please tell me if I am wrong! Also, and I am not sure how this works, if you travel from one SPs area into another and your phone cannot find G* then do you start to roam terrestially? This would be as bad as always. My second point is, if we assume that a lot of calls will be made from G* phones that use terrestial networks either because it's cheaper or because there happens to be a wall or a roof in the way, then how much money do we actually make. OK, G* sells the phone, but what about after that, how do we pay for the constellation? If I understand correctly, SPs will be using their existing network infrastructure to provide the terrestial connection option, that means G* makes a big fat zero on what is probably ninety percent of the calls made from their phones. Please tell me I am wrong! Respectfully Oliver

To: David Wiggins who wrote (3183)	2/27/1999 1:08:00 PM
From: Drew Williams	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Dave, I pretty much agree with you that in the short run (and maybe the long run, too) Globalstar will make more money in the developed areas of the world. First, in short, to echo the old bank robber, "Because that's where the money is." We can afford it. Many third world countries, even with demonstrated need, have precious little money to pay for this service at any price. Second, there is demonstrated demand for mobile wireless services in developed areas. A mobile satphone instantly fills in all the holes in the Swiss cheese coverage, so everyone who drives around on business can reach out or be reached all the time. If I were running one of the telco's, and the world is probably far better off that I am not, I would be trying to find ways to get as many Globalstar phones into the hands of as many people as possible as quickly as possible. What I would like to see is an end user handset price below $200.00 with G* premium minutes going for about $.50. This would build a very strong user base quickly. As King Gillette once said, "Give away the razor and sell the blades."