Iridium and Telstra Sim use

Jim, I did a spreadsheet a few months ago comparing the cost against a stock standard $30 a month plan to find the breakeven was around 120 minutes and 50 calls for the call costs. If you make a lot of calls or do a lot of calls the account pays as it would for you. To get the breakeven at that level you have to gainfully use the 10 minutes a month that you get for your $30 or the breakeven is even greater call times.

On that account, one friend has his live in his car whenever he is out driving so he uses it. I recon you can get cheaper calls quite frankly on even Telstra mobile.

John, having a long day. Are you saying that the break even point between the $30 a month with the $10 free and putting the Telstra simcard in at about $3.80 a minute is around 50 calls ?
Does this mean that the sim card or the $30 month is cheaper for fewer calls ? Sorry mate, brain is lagging at the moment (as usual).

I can send you the spreadsheet Jim, the breakeven slides upwards if you can't use the free calls EVERY month. The breakeven if you DO or CAN make use of them is about 120 minutes plus the dial up air time for about 50+ calls.

That means if you don't use it for more than 40 calls, say and two hours the global roaming sim card is cheaper and a LONG way cheaper if you don't use much of your $120 of free calls over the twelve months. The $10 a month can't be accumulated, you have to use them or lose them.

I also plugged in the charges if Pivotel for a trial and it really didn't do any better, just playing at the edges. You must plan to use the phone a lot to warrant paying account fees whichever company.

Thanks John, the brain is in better shape this morning :)
Yep, I can remember doing a similar exercise and still the Telstra card comes up roses.

A Motorola Iridium phone doesnt and CANT use the GSM network.
It is a Satellite only phone regardless of where in the world you use it.
Only Ericcssons and the like on the Globalsh+t network were dual mode phones as far as I am aware

Yes Im aware of the charges and because I was home alone and outside I couldnt answer it anyway. I just tried it and disconnected when the home phone rang.

Main reason for posting was because of the doubters who think the Telstra sim card doesnt work.

I paid $950 with all accessories.
Cheers

Well done Graham - looks like you have a bargain and can use it without too much further cost.

Motherhen

Thanks for that info.
Sounds like a good opton if you only need to use it occasionally.
By the way, you can also use a Telstra phone SIM in their nextG modems and get reasonably cheap internet within coverage areas at without a contract.

Cheers

Well I dont consider ANY of Telstras internet prices could be considered "reasonably cheap" in comparison to other providors

Unfortunately until Optus get their network enlarged we have to put up with being ripped off unmercifully to put it mildly.

As far as I know it is and dont think it works if its not.

I asked for it to be done when I got the account ($49 cap plan) with this in mind.

Yes a good buy still has the plastic cover on the screen.

Only for emergency use so wont be using it too much hopefully.

Cheers

Thanks. I thought that was the case.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the Tender Centre ?

A place where my old man spends WAY too much time!

Hi Footy,

The Tender Centre is like an auction house except it is only open for 3 days each fortnight for a silent bid type process.
The reserve prices are listed on each item and you just write the item number and the amount you are prepared to pay for it on the bid sheet and at the end of the 3rd day you are notified as to whether your bid is successful because it is thwe highest bid over the reserve, or as in my case, the seller accepted my bid even though it was way under the reserve price.

Less stressful than auctions and you can visit at your own leisure to place your bids.

There are a few different franchises around.

The Tender Centre

The Tender Center

BW

"A place where my old man spends WAY too much time!" You have to love that comment, Muddy. Perhaps they have a bar there :))

Thanks for that, Woody, looks interesting.

Wasnt aware of that. Will try it tomorrow.
My sim was roamed for free.

I just bought a new phone on Ebay and took it in to the local Telstra shop and they ported the account stuff over to the new phone. I said could you internationally roam it please as Im going overseas and they did it and it works.
Will let you know if messaging works

Sorry to say but you are incorrect.

I have a prepaid Telstra sim that I got with a phone I bought for my wife. I activated it in a spare mobile phone and here is the result.

I can send a text both to it from the Sat phone and from it to the Sat phone.

I can also ring a voice call to the Sat phone from it (it has int roaming enabled automatically)

You cannot however use the prepaid card in the Satphone

My sim I use in the Sat is just my Cap plan card I use every day.

Dont know why yours wouldnt work but it doesnt pay to tell Telstra too much as they can disable bits if they want to

Thanks, thats interesting. I tried it about 14 months ago & it didn't work then, my normal mobile is an Optus phone though so maybe thats the issue & it doesn't work across different networks, or perhaps Telstra made a change to allow text messages through Sat phones.
My family were using this site to send free messages when we were touring Botswana & Namibia http://messaging.iridium.com/
I think you need an Iridium SIM for this one though.
I'll dig out the Sat phone & try sending a text from an Optus mobile.
Cheers

Ok just tried to send a text from an Optus mobile to 9505a with Telstra SIM, it didn't work. However I sucessfully sent a text from the 9505a to the Optus mobile & noticed it placed a 61 in front of the number, tried a reply to the text but it never came through. So it seems you can send text from the 9505a with Telstra SIM to other mobile networks but possibly only recieve them from a Telstra mobile & not other carriers.

I've done the same with my GSM sim card. Pretty sure though it's $3.80 both making and receiving calls.

As per the manual you have to put 0061 in front of the australian mobile number or in some cases +61.
So it would be 0061 405 123456 ( no spaces)

Apparently when transmitting via satellite it needs to know which country it is sending to.

Im no expert as Ive just got it but playing with it for a while it worked.

It also was working whilst I was sitting inside my house.

Doubt that networks would make much difference but will try tomorrow to send a message to my son who is on Vodafone

Well found out this

I managed to send a Text FROM the satfone TO a Vodafone number but trying both the prefixes 0061 and +61 it would not send one back.
Will experiment later in the week.

Well looking on TR Telecoms website there is nothing like that listed.
Only the two below and at the call rate prices I wouldnt be running around town with one of these. Waiting for a lock on and risking getting the aerial broken at $300+.



http://www.trtelecom.com/pdfs/Call%20Plan%20$30%20Suspension.pdf

http://www.trtelecom.com/pdfs/Call%20Plan%20Australian%20Post-paid.pdf