9500 Sat phone - access denied ??

The same applies to satphones.
Dean

No errors and all menus working normally.

Cheers,

Sam.

With international roaming enabled too.

Finally got someone helpful at Telstra in the sat' division.

He says that prepaid nextg cards can work but not all of them and he is at a loss to explain why. EXCEPT that it could be caused by the billing system. Prepaid nextg cards have international roaming permanently enabled and when they connect internationally, either thru sat' or via a foreign network they are bounced back to oz thru a different system. Seems that the system likes some cards and not others....... mine included.

Cheers Ruth, never had a contract as emergency #'s ie, 112 and 000 don't require one.

So in effect if you have a pre paid Telstra card and dial 112 you can access "000" ?
I have always thought that there are many situations when use of 000 is not really justified, but a call elsewhere might be.

I see were you're coming from but you have a worse scenario with an EPIRB, hence my sat phone. If it doesn't justify a call I wouldn't use it. Carried it for about 5 years I guess and it's never been used....

I'm looking at an absolute worse case scenario use. My risk taking these days is on boats in v.remote locations so after I abandon ship with my sat phone and EPIRB in my grab bag and watch my radio, tools etc and pride and joy dissappear I can still at least communicate to the authorities who, what, why.

As for paying for a mobile nextg contract with int' roaming I'm contemplating it now because for the 1st time in 10 years I can just get nextg reception where I live - well outside of the house anyway.

Quick anecdote to contemplate. We had some new employees who took a wrong turn in the dark got lost (this was b4 GPS) and ran out of fuel. They had a Globalstar handset but had no clue about inserting the simcard in the box with it(derr). Anyway they rang 112 and the 000 police operator was more than happy to call us at home for them and pass on the information, their predicament and estimated location. The operator called us back 3 hours later to confirm all was well. Win win scenario.

Best of luck,

Sam

Footloose, you can have no sim card and dial 112.

Hadn't thgought of that avenue Colin. Thanks for the head up, great idea.