| Author | Message | ||
     Ted Lavino Moderator Username: tlavino Post Number: 43 Registered: 01-2006 |
Greetings Folks, an update on the state of affairs of Globalstar, from Blue Water Sailing: By, Tim Hasson It's unfortunate, but users of the Globalstar satellite telephone service who have been frustrated recently by weak signals and dropped calls are not likely to feel relief soon. It seems there is a problem with some of the satellites in the Globalstar constellation that is worse than originally expected. In an 8-K* filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week, Globalstar reported that an unspecified number of its satellites are experiencing problems with the power amplifier for their S-band antenna. The S-band antenna is the one that provides the satellite-ground link to subscriber phones for two-way voice and data services. When this amplifier is under-performing, one noticeable result to users is dropped calls. If the amplifier fails completely, voice and data communications from that particular satellite become completely impossible. The company has tried working around this problem by shifting satellite orbits and rotating spare birds already in space into new positions. They also plan to launch eight existing ground-based spare satellites by the middle of this year, which should help at least temporarily. But, as the 8-K notes: “Based on data recently collected from satellite operations, the Company has concluded that the degradation of the amplifiers is now occurring at a rate that is faster than previously experienced and faster than the Company had previously anticipated... the Company, in consultation with outside experts, has implemented innovative methods, and plans to implement additional corrective measures, to attempt to ameliorate this problem...Nonetheless, to date the Company has been unable to correct the amplifier problem and may be unable to do so.” The report goes on to say: “...if the Company is unsuccessful in developing additional technical solutions, the quality of two-way communications services will decline, and by some time in 2008 substantially all of the Company's currently in-orbit satellites will cease to be able to support two-way communications services.” And further explains that: “As the number of in-orbit satellites with properly functioning S-band antennas decreases, despite a successful launch and optimized placement in orbit of spare satellites in mid-2007, increasingly larger coverage gaps will recur over areas in which the Company currently provides two-way communication services. Subscriber service will continue to be available, but at certain times in any given location it will take substantially longer to establish calls and the average duration of calls may be impacted adversely.” Whew. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. This is a really harsh blow to a company that's been on a roll recently, with an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in November 2006, plans announced last December for their next generation of satellites starting in 2009 and a cool new handheld phone (the GSP-1700) released just this month. We're sure they have The Best Minds in the Company focused on this problem, and there's still a chance the engineers will come up with some stop-gap measure that will keep things from getting any worse. We wish them the best. |
