Sat Phones #2

Ross
I am with Telstra / Iridium and I personally am on a plan. $28.00 p/month.
With Telstra you do have an option of using your GSM sim card in the sat phone and paying no monthly sat service charge, BUT you will pay International roam rates both to and from the phone.
These rates are much higher than the respective plan rates per minute.
Have a look at Telstra Country Wide web site for plan rates.
It really depends on how much you use your phone, if purely for emergencies then using your GSM sim card in the phone can be a very cheap option.

I do not know all that much about Globestar but I was talking to a bloke in Birdsville 3 weeks ago and he had one and said that he had a lot of blank spots (No Service) My understanding is that Globestars satellites are much higher altitude and fewer of them.
His view was that the Iridium system was far superior and would go with Iridium if he had a choice.
If my memory serves me I think he also said it cost $50.00 per month plus call cost if you work it on an activate when you need it casual system.

I also am prety sure you will not be able to use the phone you are talking about with any other sat service.

By the way I paid $500.00 for my Motorola Iridium phone from a fellow user of this site through the Trader section of this site.

How much are they wanting for the phone you are looking at ?

Regards
John

I have had both Globalstar and Iridiium and used both extensively across most of Australia, I had 2 GLobalstar handsets for a bit over 2 years.

DO NOT GET GLOBALSTAR...............

Globalstar relies on you being within a certain distance to a ground station. If you get too far, you are in a blackspot and the phone will not work. This is not uncommon. I know of whole areas where phones would not work.

If the nearest Globalstar ground station is down for maintenance (this does happen) you cannot make a call for a day or so becuase the next ground station is too far away (I experience this problem confirmed by Vodaphone).

Globalstar technology is not as good meaning that service is patchy at best of times. Sure the phone might work well but usually with a drop out after a few minutes.

Telstra Iridium Motorola 9505 is a superior piece of equipment that comes with EVERYTHING you need including spare battery, external antenna and a robust small handset that can still pick up calls when clipped to your belt. None of the Globalstar phones present these options. Telstra is not 100% but is a much more robust signal and in my experience is very reliable.

The telstra iridium phones are heavily subsidised by Telstra as part of service to the bush and therefore present very good value. If you buy Globalstar then you might find in a year or so you might not be able to give the phone away.

Sean

I am with globalstar and use a Telit550 with an optional in car hands free kit. I also use a similar payment setup to landie and mainly use the Sat part of the phone for emergency and short calls. If you are sensible and keep calls short and don't gasbag for long periods costs are not to bad. I use SMS a lot as this keeps costs down as well. The incar kit gives full communication even when driving and was the main reason I chose the Telit over the Ericsson. When I purchased approx 2 years ago there were no incar kits for Ericsson's. My understanding of the Globalstar network is that they use low earth orbiting sats as opposed to Iridium who use high Geostationary sats. With Globalstar you don't have any delay when you talk and so far in 2 years of use I have never found any so called black spots in NSW,VIC,SA,WA and NT. The only state I haven't tried it in is QLD and TAS if you can call that a state. I believe there are a couple of zones where they are intentionally blocked and one of these I think is within 25km of the Parkes Radio Telescope but you have digital recetion there anyways.

I have previously hired a Telit Globalstar for use on big trips and found it to be 100% reliable. On that basis I have just ordered one of the $520 Ericssons (at that price it is not much more than three weeks hire).Bob