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Technology Stocks : CDMA, Globalstar versus Iridium, Inmarsat, etc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (354)	8/8/1999 9:52:00 AM
From: Rob Prickett	Respond to of 381

Maurice, Thanks for the periodic pokes to keep the thread going. What's your read on the potential for delay due to FBI concerns RE: not being able to wiretap sat phone systems? Rob

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (354)	11/23/1999 3:14:00 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 381

Gee Maurice, a few days more since that post [over half a year!!]. Not a lot has changed from that summary and some of those things you suggested came to pass. Iridium did indeed bite the dust as a profitable business and went broke. They are still struggling through bankruptcy but still providing service and getting new customers at a slow rate. By the end of 1999, the Globalstar system will indeed be operational, though the service providers are goofing around getting billing and stuff ready [you'd think they'd had long enough to do that but apparently not]. Well done Globalstar! A delay, much of which was due to the Zenit prang, but some due to slack Service Providers. ICO is still dipping a toe in the water! But they too went broke because they couldn't raise enough money to produce their system. Now they are working through bankruptcy, getting new shareholders maybe, who will buy cheap stock. They STILL haven't launched anything and will probably wait to see how Globalstar goes. It mustn't be looking very attractive to ICO so far given how poorly Globalstar's launch of service is going. Ellipso made out they were still in business at Telecom99 in October. They can keep things ticking along. Yes, I know it's 3 years since 1996. But that's just a few days really. Time flies. So far, 1999 has gone more or less smoothly and really well in many ways. Only another month or so to go and most of us will have got through another year! Globalstar is planning Constellation2, which will give something like 384 kbps, which should be ready to rumble in maybe 4 years. That should give good WWeb access, with high speed downloads from one of the other satellite systems with uplink via Globalstar satellites. Qualcomm's CDMA has really been roaring this year, taking over the plans for WWeb terrestrial service. By the end of 2000, there should be something like 122m cdmaOne subscribers worldwide. This year will see something over 50m. With some serious competitive work by Globalstar Service Providers, there could be 1m Globalstar customers. But not at the extorquerationate prices the Service Providers are planning. They are planning on getting only a few customers, but very profitable ones. That's the old 1980s Apple plan. It leads to competitors undercutting with 'inferior' service and getting the customers. That's not a good strategy in the wireless world. Bye for now, I'll get back to you in a few days. Some things take time... Maurice