McCaw relaunching satellite hopes

Industry observers say there could be more deals in the offing. All eyes are on Globalstar, a $3-billion, 52-satellite system that has reportedly run into trouble obtaining handsets from suppliers. Whether Globalstar is in financial trouble will not be known for sure until next year, when it must report to lenders, but it is being closely watched by the industry. “Globalstar is a test of whether there’s really a market for satellite phones and how big it is,” says Marco Caceres, space analyst at Fairfax, Va.-based Teal Group, “or whether the whole industry is just a mistake.”