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To: dougjn who wrote (570)	3/27/1998 3:08:00 PM
From: Phil Jacobson	of 29057

From the recent article in Scientific American: "The Iridium voice connection is more robust than that of the other planned personal communications satellite systems, because Motorola required that the handheld unit be usable from inside a vehicle (such as a taxi). This capability was dictated by their plan, which depends on serving international business travelers." This implies that GSTRF calls can't make the guarantee that they can penetrate glass and metal and still get to the satellite intact. And business customers will insist on this capability unless they're willing to pull over and stand on the curb to make a call. If it's wrong then the company should ask for a correction. Phil

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To: Phil Jacobson who wrote (576)	3/27/1998 3:50:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	of 29057

Time for a rant! 1 Cellphone signals won't go through metal. Neither cdmaOne nor Iridium's TDMA. That is why you can't use a cellphone inside metal box elevators [lifts] in buildings. 2 Glass hardly absorbs any signal, so both can be used inside cars if line of sight to a satellite is available. Because Iridium has more satellites, there are more line of sight opportunities - also the satellites are lower, so average transmission path lengths are shorter, meaning less power needed. Which is counteracted to some extent by the reduced signal strength needed by cdmaOne systems. 3 Globalstar share price dropped because I told a friend to sell Globalstar and swap to Qualcomm - which he did. Now he owes me a big, fat, lunch. No doubt the broker picked it up and the word is out! Qualcomm will be $80 soon. Don't miss out. I didn't sell, because I'm not a trader - I'd have to pay capital gains tax if I were. Globalstar will be back up again in a few months, climbing ever higher. 4 Globalstar wholesale price is 45 cents, approximately, per minute, to which you can add reseller charges and long distance charges. With demand as expected, the price will be nearer $2 per minute than $1 per minute. 5 Coverage for Globalstar will be near total. Efficient charging systems - single billing etc will be more important than coverage. Iridium has this area good. 6 I can't be bothered covering again the idea that GSTRF is for the starving millions and Iridium is for the stupid, rich, businessmen. People will size up the benefits of each system and the price charged. Simple. Easy peasy. Stupid rich businessmen who couldn't care less about the company's profitability will choose Iridium because it has cachet - apparently. People, including rich businessmen, who want a really good, small, high voice quality, international phone will choose Globalstar... provided they aren't chasing polar bears... etc, etc, etc.... 7 Initially there won't be so much demand that both can't handle it. Globalstar is planning a half empty system for the first few years. So there will be competition as soon as Globalstar is operational. I'll not bore you with the interplay between handset prices, demand based pricing etc etc and blah blah. What restraint they cheer!!... Mqurice

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To: Dragonfly who wrote (527)	3/27/1998 4:22:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	of 29057

As you say Dragonfly, with a full system and tons of dough rolling in...where's the problem? Give me such a problem would say all businesses. Fair enough. But the Iridium customers can have a problem; gridlock. No wonder Iridium is keen to put in more earth stations rather than the original one. Apart from political considerations in countries which like to keep their populations at heel, there is the need to reduce space switching which will increase the call carrying capacity of Iridium. To explain. If the Iridium system was full, then another caller couldn't get connected. That would happen because all pathways in the Iridium system would be full. This would happen on a 24 hour basis, like clockwork, as the busiest area on earth went into its peak calling period. Their signals would spread across all pathways, filling the system entirely. As this area moved back into quietness, all pathways would become available until 24 hours later. You suggested that certain regions might be full in Iridium, and this wouldn't affect other areas. But calls would divert from the full satellites to the ones with space avaiable until all pathways were full. Globalstar won't have this advantage and will have localized full areas and frustrated callers, but empty other areas. In a way, this is very convenient for Iridium, because Iridium could adjust prices in a very predictable way to maintain some spare capacity so another call could always connect - though there would be variations from day to day and week to week. The peak calling time would remain fairly constant. But if one area started buying heaps of handsets, the peak calling time would shift. For example, suppose initially demand is huge in the USA, peak time would be say 4 pm. But if China bought big in 6 years time, the peak period for Iridium would shift to 4 pm in China. So peak time in USA would become midnight or some such. Quite the reverse of normal expecations of peak time. As you say, such a problem is a good one to have. But demand management would be essential so callers wouldn't have dead periods of "no service available". That was the problem I meant. Although Iridium would have muliple earth gateways, that won't affect the system being fully blocked. It will just increase capacity by reducing the space switching legs of the call journey. Haven't you got pricing back to front? High prices initially, then lower prices you said. Shouldn't it be low prices initially, to build a customer base, then higher prices once the system is nearly full? Your high-priced-initially strategy would hand the customers to Globalstar on a plate. I hope they adopt that strategy. Maurice PS: I suppose if there is very high useage in one area in Iridium, then you could get locally full satellites and space available on others, but that shouldn't be the case I expect.

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