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To: Rocket Scientist who wrote (5653)	3/29/1999 8:08:00 PM
From: RMiethe	Respond to of 10852

I cannot make any authoritative comments on Globalstar's future subscription rate. I have no more information than others on what one can expect. Your numbers are arithmetically correct, as far as Globalstar being a net earner is concerned. I have seen one relatively reasonable study that looks for a Globalstar base of 700,000 users by 2002. I say reasonable because of how the numbers were estimated. Possibly, however, it may be a bit ambitious. I think (just an opinion) it will take Globalstar some 5 years to reach the one million user rate, which will keep it solvent over the course of the early years. I don't think Globalstar will pay off its initial debt with its cash flow-- it will just keep rolling it over (and will be able to because of its solvency), or perhaps issue equity to pay off some of the debt. Ted Forstmann's General Instrument did that back in 1987 or '88. As I remember, it had about $2.5 billion in debt, and through rapid sales growth of the Jerrold set-top box and cable equipment was able to issue equity shares to pay off most of the debt (if not all). The issuance of new equity shares (I think three times new equity was issued) did not prevent the stock from moving up in price. On the contrary, the share price kept on rising. As I recall, the share price went from somewhere around an $11/share low to a high of about $58/share in a period of three, four years. I would not be surprised to see this occur in the case of Globalstar. My comment on Globalstar's subscriptions, then, as I think I indicated, was simply an opinion on what I think can be expected. I have seen the company comments about 1 million users in the second or third year of operation. But until we see "the whites of their eyes", something more than company expected subscriptions would be helpful. At the current $14/share price, my "back of the envelope" expectation of 500,000 users in three years indicates to me the stock price is well below where it will be if my expectations materialize. If the company is solvent, which I think it will be, the debt pay-off, for the reason I mentioned above (an opinion) will not be that critical of an issue