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Technology Stocks : George Gilder - Forbes ASAP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gary L. Kepler who wrote (1158)	4/4/1999 9:23:00 PM
From: John Stichnoth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5853

Gary, Do you have a date on this article? It seems a bit dated, with its emphasis on GSM, while the world is moving to CDMA. Also, while I've still only skimmed much of it, I don't see it refuting the points made in the last couple of posts--there isn't enough population in the areas where it might be useful to justify the costs. How many people will want to pay for the ability to make calls from the Gobi Desert, or Siberia, or some areas of the US? Any dependence on developing markets for significant revenues seems a bit of a stretch in the present economic environment. Another problem is the handset issue. The Iridium handsets are certainly bigger than people want to carry. Which leads us back to the satellites being wholesalers for PCS companies' out of network calls. But that need is already being taken up by the wire lines, and will be by the VoIP technologies coming along soon. These backbones between populated centers will be able to handle the small additional bandwidth needs of international calls, I would think. Just a quick reaction. Best, JS