Member Info for fleccy

Planit, explain to me how Starlink will manage to deal with multiples of individual mobile connections, spread out within a small geographic area? The closest each satellite will ever be to an individual user will be around 500km when the satellite is directly overhead, and since the satellites are travelling at around 28,000 Km/hr they'll only be overhead for a split second, so they'll have to hand off to other satellites in short order. Even if the satellite's phased array antenna's can quickly redirect gain to maintain connection's, the uplink signal strength's from the mobile's, hitting the satellite antenna's, will be miniscule.

Even terrestrial cells tend to use sub 1Ghz Low Band for guaranteeing distance and building penetration. What chance does direct Satellite to mobile connectivity have commercially, taking satellite speed and altitude into account?

https://www.linkedin.com/advice/3/what-most-common-cellular-network-frequencies-ki9be

You're correct Kiwi, I believe it was czql5v who suggested it was 2.8p.

"Tax free dividend - no such thing is there?"

Depends. My wife has no other income other than dividends, so she's entitled to earn £12,570 plus a £500 dividend allowance tax free. Any dividends received in a Stocks & Shares ISA are tax free irrespective of other income.

I haven't noticed any losses, all I see is the annual income we have coming in; Paying for things like the Solar PV system we've just had installed, or the Heat Pump/central heating upgrades and other home improvements we're planning for next year, not to mention the holidays it pays for, all from our tax free dividend income. Good luck to anyone who can guess which "growth" companies will outperform and invest there, they can marvel at their paper gains sitting in their share dealing accounts, but they need to sell to realise their gains and there's no guarantee they'll pick winners on an ongoing basis. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but we're no longer reinvesting our dividends, we're taking the income instead and spending on various other things.

"These partnerships are vital for bringing Starlink's Direct to Cell service"

That isn't direct to mobile though, is it? Direct to cell would involve an Uplink/Downlink at the cell site, with a Transceiver at the cell site using the satellite as a backbone (backhaul) service. Do you need 30,000 satellites to achieve that? Eutelsat (OneWeb) are already partnering with BT to provide backhaul services to remote locations, with far less satellites. Because of bandwidth and signal strength limitations, LEO's will only be capable of servicing a limited number of direct to mobile calls within a geographic area. I can see the business case for services involving transportation and backhaul, where high gain amplifiers and antennas can boost the uplink/downlink signal's, but LEO direct to mobile will be a very limited and unreliable service in my opinion.

"Dear boy, CZQ, I don't see much difference between 2p and 2.8p"

That'd be a £710 difference for me, not that insignificant.

Thought I'd post this before Mole does.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/12/15/elon-musk-revolutionise-life-british-countryside/

"Starlink, which already has 87,000 subscribers to home broadband in Britain, could seek to launch a “virtual” network using existing phone networks but augmented by its satellites"

I'm not sure if the article is suggesting that Satellite providers, like Starlink, will start their own MVNO's in conjunction with some sort of add on satellite functionality, but that would be more of a threat to other MVNO's rather than the MNO's that own the mobile networks

This article talks about Direct to Phone (Mobile) service as if it's an easy thing to achieve with enough satellites in orbit, in my opinion it's anything but easy. Mobile phones aren't particularly directional, so the satellite would have to use it's phase array directional antennas to provide the gain to hold up the call's, so if you're providing simultaneous service to multiple devices each device would need to use a significant portion of the satellite antenna array. Because most LEO's orbit at an altitude of around 500Km, travelling at around 28,000Km/hr, how many handoff's and individual mobile's will each satellite be able to handle in a particular location? To service more mobiles, you need higher Frequencies with larger bandwidths, but the higher the Frequency the more you suffer from atmospheric affects.

I can see how they might be able to deal with one or two calls in the middle of nowhere, but direct to mobile isn't a threat to terrestrial MNO's. A more sensible approach is to have remote 5G cells that uplink to LEO's, providing a backbone service for localised mobile devices. An alternative to LEO's, that would work directly with mobile, are High Altitude Platforms (HAP's).

Savage you also swop narrative dependent on where you're invested, on the Vodafone chat page you said:

"Then there's the wider macroeconomic picture for UK... with the Tories gone and Labour being pro-growth + pro-business then UK stocks are a better investment than they have been throughout Tory rule which only saw the FTSE indices see investor outflows YoY as the decay/rot set in. Yes, the journey up will be a long and hard fought one but the direction is inevitable for VOD and the wider FTSE markets too"

Then in this thread, you said:

"Anyway the UK Macroeconomic situation is getting further worse so, precisely as I'd warned the data was showing to be the case... Today ONS says October GDP shrank by 0.1% and that lands on the back of terrible performance in the months leading up. Data here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/bulletins/gdpmonthlyestimateuk/october2024

Lots of job losses appear to be accumulating from big names and house prices remain well overcooked too. Those indebted are beginning to fold under the weight of repayments or they've now cut spending to such a degree they no longer offer enough demand to keep the UK economic engine alight"

Do you see the contradiction between those two posts? If you're going to express an opinion, you should stick with the same narrative, not swop it around dependent on the stock you're referring to.

Savage you just talk your own book. Well done for selling out of BT at a profit, but you should stick to commenting on Vodafone since that's you're new found darling pumping stock. BT could go down into the 130's, or it could go up to £2, you have no better insight as to where it will go than the next man. I agree with your view that Vodafone is probably around as low as it will go, since it's been range bound for a considerable amount of time now. I've got no gripe with you, but you show signs of sellers remorse that you didn't hold out longer with your BT holding, wishing BT lower doesn't mean it will happen. As far as Vodafone is concerned, I probably hold more stock I than you, so I have a vested interest to see the prices go up for them, but BT's path to growing the bottom line is far clearer than Vodafone's in my opinion. I invested in Vodafone because of their emerging markets and international exposure, I invested in BT because of their cost cutting potential and significant market power, plus they both pay dividends.

"So another post that mentions 2028 may reward investors is too long for a worthwhile return that may not even happen"

No mention of the current and possibly increasing 8p dividend in your post, you forgot to add an annual 5.3% dividend yield to the possible return; And the best thing about that is that you don't have to wait until 2028 to start seeing returns. You could invest in other companies that pay dividends, but you still have to deal with the possible unknown's going forward.

No agenda and no writhing and wriggling, I'm just giving my opinion based what I've read. No amount of wishing from you will change the business case for when BT may spin off the Openreach workforce, I believe it wouldn't be feasible until at least 2030; If you think it'll be sooner, you should present your reasoning as to why and how.

When they use the words formally intervene, what they mean is they'll request permission from the court to testify. You can be sure that all the Bank's legal teams would have ensured that their Motor Finance business was conducted well within FCA regulations, so I'm not sure why it would be a bad thing for the FCA to "intervene".

Expat BT may well choose to package up and sell off their pole and duct assets, but that would be valued and sold separately to Openreach. One of the original reasons for keeping the assets within BT were due to wayleaves and other legalities, it's unlikely that they'd sell the assets with Openreach unless it hiked the price significantly. One downside of selling off the assets is that they'd have to pay rent to use what was previously their own ducts and poles, which would be an expensive recurring cost considering they use all of the national network assets 24/7/365.

Regulators often get involved in court cases impacting regulation, the FCA getting involved might not be a bad thing. The FCA would testify to clarify the regulation in relation to the case and detail what was and wasn't allowed by the Banks/dealerships.

Notakin the fact that Openreach doesn't own the assets is irrelevant, Openreach will be valued on the size of the customer contracts it has. If BT was to spin off Openreach they'd let it go with contractual guarantee's for so many years into the future, plus Openreach would also have contractual agreements with other CP's using BT's duct and pole assets. There are loads of third party service providers that don't own the assets they manage, Openreach would operate like them.

"Fleccy, Openreach (or rather the national network maintained by Openreach) will not remain part of BT for much longer IMO. What makes you so keen to keep BT as it is?"

I don't remember ever saying that Openreach will remain part of BT, in fact I've mentioned more than once that Openreach will eventually be spun off once BTPS is no longer an issue. The unrealised value locked up in Openreach is part of my investment case for BT.

Because of the BT pension scheme I don't expect BT will be able to unload Openreach until at least 2030, unless something happens in the meantime to eliminate the pension deficit and allowing Brightwell to arrange a scheme buyout.

"That is a big error. BT and now Vodafone 3 are building national IP networks. Both of these companies are the backbones of telecoms in the UK"

PRK, Vodafone took over the Cable & Wireless Worldwide Network and as much as it's true that Vodafone have a national IP backbone network, their fibre coverage is nowhere near the size of BT's; So if Vodafone want to provide service to an Enterprise customer, then they have no choice but to rent capacity off BT/Openreach. Also even though Openreach is run as a separate business to BT, and BT has to pay the same rates as other Openreach customers, any Openreach profits show up in BT's overall revenue anyway. I always said that BT is a cost cutting play, rather than a revenue growth business, that doesn't mean investors can't profit from investing there.

PRK if BT didn't have Significant Market Power, then OFCOM wouldn't be all over them. I think you underestimate the competitive power BT has. I had a front row seat in the 1990's when BT was written off as a dinosaur that'd be wiped out by the Cable Companies, but here we are today with BT as the Whale and everyone else minnows. Even with all cable companies and O2 combined into VMO2, their revenue is only just over half of BT's.

No mention of lower staffing going forward, reduced building footprint, savings from PON and convergence, PRK? BT own the the largest national Fibre and duct network, they also own the company that manages those assets, I'm talking about Openreach. BT own their own mobile network within the consumer brand EE and the only thing holding them back from meaningfully competing on price is fear of regulatory action. As the Altnets grow, OFCOM will have no option but to release BT's shackles.

BT is undervalued by any metric.

Fibreclod, if anyone should put a sock in it it's you.

"BT retail (Business and Residential) will shrink until they have, at best, 25% of the market. They'll settle into a dividend share of 4-5% with an SP of £1.30-£1.60"

Pure speculation and scaremongering with no basis in fact.

Read the permission to appeal thread.