Satellite communications

Ditto to this, we had a very bad, frustrating situation with Globalstar on the GCR, when we got home we canned it and got an Irridium, that was about four years ago and have had no problems since....
Cheers
D..

You are lucky, they wouldn't come to the party for us, we had quite an argument too after our experience but they still wouldn't budge.

It is funny how Globalstar changed their mind when the ombudsman got involved

Neil

I guess I just couldn't be bothered, in all seriousness I was so mad at the time I just wanted out, it was so frustrating paying for a phone that just didn't work at a time of an emergency, which is what we had the jolly thing for..... I'm still fuming about it now, I really need to let it go don't I....lol

Cheers

D

BTW Iridium is not much better for drop outs...... but you know it will start working again in 20 minutes.

I''ve never had Iridium drop out for 20 minutes. I sit it on the dash and it stays there on a regular basis. I've never seen it drop out for more than a couple minutes, and not that often.

It's not just our, others we know off have the same issue.

Ours is mounted in a Beam car kit and is in easy view, what we find is we have a signal and sometimes when we go to make a call or receive a call the signal drops out, again it's not just ours.

Hi "olcoolone"

I think TR's issue wasn't so much the drop out but the time period you mention - 20 minutes. This seems to be unusual (based on my own limited experience with Iridium but also on the lack of other mention on the forum of an Iridium drop out time of this magnitude).

How many times have you actually experience a 20 minute drop out with the Iridium network? Or do you mean that after a drop out you have waited 20 minutes (without repeatedly trying) and then it worked i.e. it could have been OK after 20 seconds but you never checked? Your comments so far are somewhat ambiguous in this respect.

Cheers
Greg

We got pretty average call quality in the Northern Simpson in June with dropouts, to give you an example we spent about 40 minutes a day on the phone, most people with sat phone are lucky to spend that long over a month.

Had the same issue with two customers, one in the Kimberleys and one in Kalumburu last month, over 30 minutes of phone calls we had 5 dropouts.

...Not disputing that drops out occur...just doubt the 20 min time frame you mentioned. In the absence of a direct explanation I have come to the conclusion you were exaggerating.

Cheers
Greg

Good luck, try ebay.....

You want a phone that works in an emergency, one that can't find a Sat means it may work well as a boat anchor.

IIRC Globstar uses a geostationary satellite to our north so phone performance in the mountainous parts of southern Australia may be compromised.

GlobalStar are the same as Iridium, they both use LEO satellites, Thuraya, Optus Mobilesat and Inmarsat isatphone uses GEO sats......

Funny thing is SPOT uses Globalstar, Globalstar is the parent company.

Give me a GEO sat phone any day, as for poor performance down south, we use Optus Mobilesat phones for our service vehicles and in Alice Springs we get 16 bars out of 20 and in Adelaide we get 12-14 bars out of 20 on the signal meter....... anything above 8 is OK.

Thanks for the correction.

Yeah, I use a SPOT in Vic. It works but you have to give an OK msg about 25 mins to run to be sure it gets out.

I also have an Isatphone Pro with Inmarsat. It's close to useless anywhere but appears to be one of the few. And the retailer is defined as the service provider and is not registered with the TIO so I can't use that route to get redress.

G'day Peter,

I have used both G'star and iridium and even had a behind the scenes understanding and hands on of globalstar in my old job. (They actually run Aussie groundstations for us due to the nature of the network)

I have both phones at the moment, and have noticed a significant improvement in Gstar, but i was still struggling getting test calls through reliably. I prefer it as a network and the delay is considerably less and a little more user friendly than Iridium.
the call rates are good, and i believe they are still letting us connect and disconnect our phones without fees or minimum period (ie you could connect it for a 2 month trip and then mothball the phone and the bills) due to the state of the network.
Yes it's also great to receive calls on, no incoming charges and regular aussie mobile rates for those calling you, but with the state of the network i reckon they would mostly go to voicemail anyway.

BUT, I now just take my Iridium phone which I use on my Telstra SIM. It's super reliable even if it isn't as nice to use, and I don't have to worry about contracts.
With the telstra SIM i wouldn't use it to book into a motel somewhere due to the cost, but it is always there and reliable which is what you want in an emergency.

So both have advantages, but for me, an Iridium purely for emergencies on a Telstra SIM is a no brainer.

Rob

Hi Rob,

Thanks for that. Maybe I have a misunderstanding about how the Telstra/Iridium works for someone who just wants an emergency facility and not a chat phone. Don't you have to have an expensive prepay card anyway and doesn't this expire after a given period? My knowledge of mobile phones is poor and my knowledge of sat phones negligable. When I was long distance sailing I had an HF radio and a Pactor modem for emails, but all that's a bit pricy for a few outback trips before I get too old.

Peter H

OK,

I Have a regular Telstra nextg post pay SIM. It must be post pay because you need to get international roaming enabled (which only takes a call to request it. No extra service fee)
I then put that SIM into my iridium phone and presto, I have satellite phone access.

NB. Calls and Sms are VERY expensive and not part of your included calls unless you have some international credit included. That is the big disadvantage. An Sms was 2 Bucks incoming and outgoing from memory to give you an idea!

So in summary.
Telstra nextg post pay sim
International roaming
Iridium phone.
= EXPENSIVE SATELLITE CALLS lol

I even test called RACV successfully.