Globalstar Telecommunications Limited GSAT Message Board

To: Michael Grant who wrote (28574)	4/25/2012 4:44:19 PM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) of 29069

Footprint of Globalstar satellites. You can get a good idea by looking at the coverage map showing gateways. For example there are 3 in Australia. The one at Dubbo covers New Zealand. The one at Dubbo has even managed to deliver SPOT data from the western side of Rarotonga. When there are millions of subscribers, even out of the way places such as Fiji, Tahiti and Hawaii could justify ground stations. But for now, that's totally uneconomic. Even mainland places still don't have them Africa, India and elsewhere. When there are millions of subscribers, another constellation at 10,000km altitude could cover everywhere. Perhaps an equatorial orbit then a polar one too. Until Globalstar stops trying to build a niche business and gets with mass marketing in the Cyberspace realm, they will remain uncompetitive. Internet businesses [which is what Globalstar is] need economies of scale to reduce unit costs to nearly nothing. If they don't, they get run over by companies which do. Network effect and economies of scale are the name of the game. Mqurice