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

To: John Stichnoth who wrote (1160)	4/4/1999 10:09:00 PM
From: Drew Williams	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5853

RE: Satellite telephones I don't know where you guys all live, but I think you are overlooking what some of us have come to call the Swiss Cheese nature of the American cellular system. I live in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, about forty minutes from Philadelphia's City Hall (or three hours, depending on the traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway). I work in Chester County. My Mother-in-law lives in Berks County. I can tell you that whenever I drive from home to work or over the river and through the woods to my daughter's Grandma's house, I always lose cellular service for at least a little while. I carry a company-supplied Ericsson phone on Comcast's digital (TDMA) network. My wife carries an older company supplied Ericsson phone on Bell Atlantic's analog network. Other people in my company carry Nextel phones. Everyone I know has had the same experience: there are holes in the system all over the place. Usually this does not matter, although it can be annoying. However, sometimes it is important. When I worked for Radio Shack way-back-when, the story was that John Roach's wife (he was then Chairman and Ceo of Radio Shack's parent company, Tandy Corporation) had to sit by the side of a Fort Worth freeway for four hours one August (read extremely hot) afternoon until somebody with a cellular phone took pity and called the AAA. Similar stories are legion. My own wife involved in a five car incident a few years ago that forced her to drive her car into a snowbank. Without the cellular, she would have had to walk five miles to a payphone; instead, she called me (AAA was about four hours behind). If that had happened in Chester Springs, where even today there is no service, she might still be waiting. So what's my point? Here we are in one of the largest metropolitan areas of the United States, and there are still significant areas without reliable cellular coverage. My experience is that the rest of the country has similar problems. Simple financial common sense says that no sane business person is going to put a cellular tower where it is not going to be used. So, we can reasonably expect that this Swiss Cheese description will continue to be accurate. The only economically viable way to fill in the gaps is via satellite. My guess is that everyone who spends a significant part of their working day in a car (especially those working outside the largest metropolitan areas) would be happy to spend a few hundred dollars for a dual mode (CDMA or GSM cellular / satellite) and a few extra bucks a month for service to ensure that they would always be able to communicate. And if Qualcomm knew they could sell several million phones in the U.S. over the next year or two (I believe that would be easy if the up-front cost of the phone was less than $200.00), they could devote the resources needed to overcome your size and weight objections. My first analog cellular phone was the size of my Roy Rogers lunchbox, and I was thrilled to hardwire that sucker in my trunk with a handset and speakerphone up front. If Comcast offered that today, I know an electronic security company that would immediately buy fifteen of them. Now, let's talk about the rest of the world where the cellular service is not as good as here or downtown Helsinki . . . Whether GlobalStar is a great buy or not today depends on your investment horizon. If you are looking out thirty days, you can probably find better places to put your money. Qualcomm is on a tear right now. If you are looking out a year or two or three, I think the answer is significantly different.