<span class="highlight">Globalstar</span> - are they that bad?

If you have read the previous posts then you know the issues.

Also the top of Australia is still in the southern hemisphere or at least it was last time I looked.

The service quality you experienced last year with Globalstar are irrelevant to Globalstar performance today - many of their satellites have failed in the last year.

The reduced number of available satellites currently is causing the performance problems.

I'd say that the in-car kit also improved your performance with reception as they make a point of highlighting this in their brouchures. I've found the service pathetic over every part of Australia that I've visited (and that's a fair bit of Oz in the last 18 months. So much so that after my last trip in August this year, I rang and refused to part with any more money until they could achieve the level of coverage and service that they alluded to in their advertising. I'm in "waiting" mode at the moment. I'll see if they've improved any on the next trip in a few months. Having seen the benefits of a HF radio community on the last trip, i'm going down that road I think.

Cheers.

Mick

I am the Pivotel Managing Director and I would like to take the opportunity to directly address some of the Globalstar issues being raised. I apologise for gatecrashing the forum and will go away if you don't find the information here at least a little bit helpful.

Pivotel is the parent company of Globalstar Australia. The Globalstar service is being affected by the performance of the satellite constellation and this is frustrating and even angering some people. At Globalstar Australia we resell the airtime but have no ownership interests in the satellites. So we also get frustrated with satellite gaps. Currently we believe the phones can connect and make calls around 60-70% of the time. Globalstar in the US has launched 8 new satellites, 5 are in operation and the remaining 3 are being moved to their orbit locations and will become operational in 2008. Some improvement has occurred over the past 3-4 months and we expect to see some further improvement next year however we expect from there it will get a little worse over time. Globalstar in the US is working to launch a new satellite constellation commencing in mid 2009. Because of the reduced quality of service we will cutting our satellite per minute call rates by 50% for all Globalstar users from January 2008 through until December 2009.

In addition, we are planning to launch the Iridium service under Pivotel in February next year. Most of the call plans rates will be identical to the current Globalstar plans but without the 50% discount. The service will use standard mobile numbers that can also provide access to the Vodafone network at great call rates. Because we will use standard mobile numbers it won't be expensive to call one of our Iridium phones. There will be an opportunity for existing customers to switch to Iridium on a subsidised handset and carkit offer. There won't be any need to enter into a whole new network agreement. A minimum term will apply. We will be writing to all of our customers in the next 1-2 weeks with this same information and the offer will be made available from late January.

For those of you who have stuck with us I am grateful. In Australia we cannot control the satellites but we do try to limit the impact upon you and have been working on the Iridium alternative for some time to ensure we offer a better service than our competitors. With a good network of dealers around the country and a very competent and responsive call centre team we aim to proviide the best possible level of support.

I'll stick with Inmarsat. And no, I don't use it in the marine environment.

The question has been asked as to whether we pay Globalstar in the US for the service they provide. Yes we do. We have a commercial agreement with them. Whilst the deterioration in satellite services hurts us and our customers today we are optimistic that Globalstar will have a very good service once they launch their new satellites commencing in 2009.

For anyone who would like to see when they can make calls in their area of travel, please have a look at the Optimum Covergae tool available on the globalstar.com.au web site. This tool will show the best times for making calls from any location for up to 48 hours ahead. The times when gaps in coverage occur varies from day to day due to the nature of LEO satellites. It is possible to calculate from the report the overall percentage of time they can connect. For example, running the satellite availability today for Quiplie in Western Queensland would show that the satellite connectivity is approximately 70%