From norman@pagesat.net Wed Dec 4 15:18:18 1996 Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 14:25:22 -0800 From: Norman Gillaspie Message-Id: <199612042225.AA11506@pagesat.net> To: sat-list@pagesat.net The investors and shareholders today decided to liquidate the NCIT. This was a complete shock to me as I thought we had an agreement in place to purchase the company over a period of time out of the receipts of the company. I did not own any part of and was not an officer of the company but had certain buy out rights that I could exercise. In any event after the transition to GE-1 the required power to operate the service doubled and other various business reasons on the investors side precipitated them into shutting down the company. The operation of the teleport and space segment and salaries were part of the problem. In addition new software and encryption would need to be implemented in January to assure that payments would be made towards the operation. I could not convince them to continue on. I have worked for the past few months without any payments and have not had a vacation for 3 years. The company owes me a fair amount in back salary, vacation pay etc. As you might not no or be aware of. I started the USENET news broadcast almost 4 years ago when the news feed was only 30 to 50 megs a day. It is now well over 700 megs just for the domestic groups and not the foreign groups. There are well over 350 sites that were receiving their news feeds via the satellite system. I am looking for alternatives to continue the service on where you can use your existing hardware. I do not have anything firm at this time. I suggest that you do what you can in the meantime as an alternative. I will keep you informed as I do have an Email list of most of the users. If you would like to be kept informed you can send an Email message to norman@norm.pagesat.net and keep a watch out in biz.pagesat. My son is in the hospital again. He has Cystic Fibrosis which affects his lungs. So this has been a very stressful time for my family. Some of you may know my wife Lydia as well. we are all saddened by these events. I am hoping to try and continue the service however there are no guarantees at this time. I thank you all for the support you have given me in pioneering this effort and I do recognize the investment that you have all made in equipment and time. So we will see what tomorrow brings and wish us all luck. regards Norman Gillaspie norman@norm.pagesat.net