Satellite phone service providers

G'day ptcrowe , i will be looking at this post very carefully lol .
You beat me to it , I just bought the same phone and are looking to get it connected.
I have been told i can get a normal telstra sim card and have it set on roam , more expensive in call cost , but no monthly fees . it will be interesting to see the replies

I have one with a Telstra card, and it is $30 a month. I get that amount in free calls (as far as I can remember). The Telstra website should give details of all the plans that are available.
Jack

Why don't you give John at Landwide Satellite Solutions a call. He's a personal friend of ours, and is one of Telstra's biggest sat phone agents. He has plenty of experience with the 9500 on Iridium and might be able to do you a deal of some sort. He's in Sydney.

http://www.landwide.com.au/

Cheers
Chris

The only service provider available for the Iridium network in Australia is Telstra.

The plans available are listed on Telstra Countrywide web site.

You can use a normal GSM Sim card if you have international roam activated on the card.
This will save you the plan cost but will cost you about $4.00 to $5.00 per minute used in this way. Good for emergency use only.
You will have to ask about this feature as they don't advertise it for obvious reasons.

If you are going to use the phone on a regular basis then it's cheaper on the plan.
$30.00 plan gives you $10.00 worth of calls per month. Calls cost about $2.00 per minute on this plan.
$50.00 plan gives you $20.00 worth of calls per month. etc etc for the other plans.
Check out there web site for details on all plans.

Call Telstra Sat Services on 125135 for further details.

Thanks very much for the replies. Considering the fact that this phone was purchased as a means of emergency comminications only I will get on to Telstra and ask about the GSM card.

Good news ptcrowe,

My new second hand 9500 turned up from the Ebay seller today.

It takes a full size SIM card so the first stop after the Post Office was the phone shop belonging to a fellow 4wd club member to get a big sim that had had the little middle bit punched out to go in a little "city" phone.

I positioned my digital SIM on which global roaming has been enabled, into the holder and taped it in place (on the non contact side) and pushed it into the 9500.

Got a job so turned it on on the way and waited for reception and registration.

Voila. It's looking good.

I rang my off siders mobile and it works.

Guess I just saved $30 a month. Sorry Telstra.

I'll now make a call for 2 mins and have a look at online billing in a couple of days to see how much $$$

Dave

Geocacher thanks very much for the info I am looking forward to your findings on the costs of calls

Hi ptcrowe,

Bought a Motorola 9500 the other day as you know.

$900 second hand with car & mains charger, external antenna, spare battery, manual and international adaptors.

Worked out I can just use my digital SIM in it. Had to set it up for international roaming first, and I tried one without internation roaming and it doesn't work.

With international roaming set up I could make and receive calls no problem.

Done some testing.
Made a two minute call from the Satphone to home, then a two minute call from home to the satphone.
Incoming call charged to GSM Telstra Account at $3.00 a minute inc GST (or just under this)
Outgoing call charged to GSM Telstra Account at $3.00 a minute inc GST

I don't know if there was a flagfall so have assumed that there wasn't. If there was the per minute rate will actually be lower but for a short call you may as well calculate it this way anyway.

I can't find out how much I was charged for the call from home to the satellite phone tonight, but as soon as I know I'll post the cost here.

But based on the fact that they charge about the same for incoming or outgoing calls it would be cheaper for me to ring the wife at home from the satphone and only pay once than to ring from home and pay for both calls.

At $3 a minute I can make 120 minutes of calls a year before I'm behind on what it would have cost to take out a Satellite plan. (I'm assuming most months I wouldn't use the $10 included calls and that'd I'd lose them anyway.)

I probably won't make half that, so that's the plan at the moment. My regular SIM card in the phone and phone turned off unless I need it, cos I don't want the Control Room finding me when I'm away.

It will be interesting to see what happens now that I have both. I think I will still use the HF for Scheds on VKS737 - and you never know when help is actually another member just down the road - and for HF ABC radio for news weather etc.

The Satphone is going to be the first thing i reach for if I need to get a chopper in to cart out a patient though.

Hope this helps some of you - ptcrowe particularly,

Dave