Satellite phones have become increasingly more popular year by year. They enable the everyday person to stay connected when traveling to remote locations where cell towers and data services are not available. Sat phones have been available for years but not until the Iridium network was launched did, they become a truly valuable asset. When Iridium satellite phones were first launched, they were offered at an unaffordable price. Recently sat phones have become more affordable and are an asset in all emergency kits and are an excellent backup to cell phone networks. When faced with a natural disaster terrestrial cell towers are the first to go down and all communication is lost. With the new affordable satellite phones, we are solving a century long issue.
Unlike cell phones, satellite phones do require a line-of-site to the sky to obtain signal for the phone to operate. These phones will not work indoors such as a retirement home or a stateroom on a cruise. However, they will work on deck of or if you have a docking station and extended antenna they can be used indoors. Buildings, mountains, and heavy treed areas can affect the signal of a satellite phone negatively. If you are planning to use a sat phone for aviation, most pilots will use the Iridium GO! And place the unit on the dash of the plane’s cockpit so it can receive signal.
When calling into a satellite phone from a cell phone it can incur heavy overage fees. We have created a quick work-around to ensure the cell users do not get affected by these overages. You have 2 options, you can opt in for the U.S. number on your monthly plan or you can use the two-stage dialing method. If you are wanting to text from your satellite phone to a cell phone it will have the same overages as texting someone in Mexico or Canada. Our work around for texting satellite phones is to go to the website https://messaging.iridium.com . Simply put in your email address, the satellite phone number, and your email. To read more about messaging Iridium phones click here. Globalstar GSP-1700 offers incoming texting but no outgoing texts.
Inmarsat offers their service at a little more affordable rate. However, their coverage range is global minus the polar regions. The IsatPhone 2 is a talk and text satellite phone but also has built-in GPS receiver. To acquire a signal on the IsatPhone it can take some time due to the placement of the I-4 satellite and GPS acquisition.
If you’re looking for the best network and the best phone look no further than the Iridium 9575 Extreme. This phone comes in as the most ruggedized casing currently available with an IP rating of IP65. Meaning you can drop the phone in a puddle of water and still be 100% functional. Some other features this sat phone processes is it has the ability to talk, text, send GPS coordinates, and has an SOS button. The Iridium Extreme works off the unparallel Iridium network for coverage and quality.
