Globalstar launched in four countries in Europe last week. The MSS operator’s partner, Telecommunications par Satellites Mobile (TE.SA.M), a joint venture between France Telecom and Alcatel, said it expected to sign up 30,000 to 40,000 subscribers in the first year of operations. TE.SA.M is selling the service though local GSM providers including Mobistar (Belgium), France Telecom Mobiles TD Com, Geolink and FTRSI (France), Telefonica Mobiles (Spain) and Telecel and Optimus (Portugal). The list takes the total number of countries where Globalstar service is currently available to 15, though so far it only has a few thousand trial subscribers. TE.SA.M is offering two services: a dual mode GSM/satellite phone and a single mode satellite-only phone. The dual phones are manufactured by Telit and Ericsson. TE.SA.M said it would launch the service in a futher nine countries covered by its European gateway in the next few weeks. Next up for launches include the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Poland, The Netherlands, Morocco and Tunisia.