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

To: John Stichnoth who wrote (4852)	5/22/1999 12:26:00 AM
From: Rocket Scientist	Respond to of 29987

John, it seems to me your pricing scenario would be an attractive one for consumers, and G's retailers. If the monthly fee is low enough there are plenty of people (RVers, etc) who would like to have a G phone, basically for emergencies but hardly ever use it--that's good for service providers and phone mnfctrs, not so good for G* except to the extent that the monthly fee from these users helps reduce the average per minute cost for other users. But truly, I'm convinced that the key early adapters of G* phones will be the same as for fax machines...large organisations: corporate, government, military and law enforcement, etc. For these customers, price per minute is not the issue, especially if it's clear that they only pay the satellite charge when there's no other practical choice. If I was G* marketeers, at least in N. America, I would concentrate nearly all my efforts on vertical users; not only will they get more phones sold, IMO, but the ultimate users will be relatively, often completely, insensitive to the cost per minute. For large orgs, the phones will be purchased in bulk by some bureaucrat in Information Systems, or the like, and distributed to the high value assets (physical or human) that need to stay in touch wherever they are. Once distributed, the human being that dials the phone many times will have no idea or care what the call costs. For these users, reliability, customer service, call quality, and unit hardware cost will count more than the per minute charge, IMO, especially if they can do a competitive procurement and show their boss that G* is 20% cheaper than IRID, for example. Only after the vertical markets are well seeded with phones, would I worry much about retail consumers....if G* has any minutes left that is...it's possible most retail consumers will be forgotten until Gen2. But I do feel G* hasn't answered several important questions these vertical customers will ask; for example: 1. What happens when my executive G* phone user travelling from N. America to China by way of Frankfort wants to use his fancy phone in Europe? Are you telling me he'll have to use this Qualcomm phone in satellite mode because it doesn't understand GSM? Reverse the question for the European exec travelling via N. America. 2. What happens when the home office calls Mr. VIP? Is it an international call? what are the rates? Are they different if he's in an area covered by conventional cellular vs in the boondocks where the call has to go by satellite? 3. For the price I'm paying for the service, G* ought to throw in a nice, compact SotA conventional cell phone that can be call forwarded to the G* phone only when necessary--all having the same phone number. That way Mr. VIP can carry a normal cell phone most of the time, and lug the G* phone only when necessary. Have a good weekend, RS