GSAT’s Spectrum is Worthless
Bringing Globalstar’s High-Flying
Spectrum Story Back to Earth
Bulls dream big about GSAT’s proposed Wi-Fi-like service, TLPS. But TLPS will be, in Cisco’s words, “nothing more than a paid Wi-Fi offering.” Yet GSAT’s market value exceeds that of the largest paid-Wi-Fi firm, Boingo (WIFI), by 28x.
There is already plenty of Wi-Fi spectrum to go around, and more is on the way.
With engineering best practices and up-to-date technology, Wi-Fi performs great on current unlicensed spectrum, even in highly dense, bandwidth-hungry environments.
Super Bowl XLVIII
Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics
Mobile World Congress 2014 (Barcelona)
Stanford University Computer Science Department Building
Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2014
When bad Wi-Fi can already be fixed using today’s best practices on public bands, who will have any interest in one licensed, private Wi-Fi channel? And the technology for high-density Wi-Fi environments is only getting better every day.
In a world where:
Does TLPS have any remotely viable future? Or is TLPS merely Globalstar management’s latest scheme to “totally not go bankrupt this time”:
GSAT has almost $600 million in net debt but hasn’t been profitable in years. It’s unlikely to be able to meet its financial covenants in the coming years.
A dilutive capital raise is a real possibility. Recently, Iridium, a major player in GSAT’s industry with a very similar debt facility, was also on track to violate its covenants. In May, its creditors forced it to raise over $200 million in new equity.
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