Satphones

Price may, a camera my mate bought in usa was half the price of here.

Motorola 9500 and 9555 will also work, but the 9500 cannot send SMSs.

Graham,

So with Iridium its as simple as buying the phone and popping your Next G Sim card in, and then make Next G calls and Satellite calls ??

Sounds better than having a plan for the occasional use.

Would I need to speak to Telstra to find out more about this ?

Brett...

Graham
If you call Telstra they'll try to convince you that it won't work. They want you to go on a plan.
For 3 years we've taken a Motorola 9500 all over Oz, including across the Simpson Desert last August and it has never failed us. All you need is your normal Next G SIM card and it must be international roam enabled

Yes I know been there done that.

Telstra would be the last place to mention it to.

It works believe us. DONT RING TELSTRA.


Only thing I have found not to work is that A Vodafone and Optus user cannot send texts to the satfone.

However they can ring you.

As my son is on one and my mate is on the other we tested it several times with the above result

I am using a 9505A so it can both send and receive texts.

Cheers

To PatrolSTL04

Not quite
The satfone can only connect to a satellite.
It can NEVER connect to the cellfone network.

It uses the sim card for identification and charging
The sim card must be a TELSTRA internationally roamed post paid card ( on a plan) NOT PREPAID

It charges the calls to your cell account at the rate of about $3 a minute
Also if you have your sim in the phone and someone rings you it also costs you the same rate for an inward call.

If you have it on a Telstra satellite account it costs about $30 a month but call rates are lower and you dont pay for inward calls.


A Thuraya Satfone will connect to both satellite and cell network but as there is only one satellite over Singapore reception wont be the best.
Iridium ahve several satellites nearer to Australia to give a blanket coverage.

Hope that covers it fully.

Thanks Graham.

Fully clarified.

I can leave the sim card in my ordinary 3G mobile, and when no\ reception pop it into the sat phone.

Thanks again.

Brett....

Thuraya has a single satellite 30,000km up - if you can't pick up the signal from where you are due to a mountain being in the way, you will never access the satellite.

Iridium uses 66 satellites 700km up that are moving across the sky quickly - if you can't get a satellite signal, just wait until a satellite comes over the horizon.

Globalstar has . . . . . satellites with defective transmitters.

Graham can i use my old telstra sim card (still on plan) or does it have to be next G. Thanks everyone for the info.

Any Telstra SIMcard will work as long as -

- It has International Roaming enabled
- It's not Prepaid
- It doesn't have 1900 Call Barring.

If you put the SIMcard in, it should say "Registered" within a minute of getting satellite signal.

You can do free testing by calling from the Satphone or to the Satphone, as long as the call isn't answered.

Thanks Mike