Lookie my new phone! I'm happy :)

No, never used one...

First half of '05 I used my employer's Iridium and I had no problems. Used in Eastern Europe, Lithuania (Vilnius, Kaunas and various obscure towns near the Latvian border), Finland (just Helsinki), UK, stop-over in Sydney, on a client's yacht in the Gulf of Mexico, and probably the most obscure location, about 100 southeast of Brasilia to meet another client... Not sure of the precise model of the phone, but I think the service provider was Roadpost...

 

I think the consensus is if you're going to travel to less than civilized nations in the planet without well established GSM networks, then the satellite phone may be your only option.

For road warriors that travel to mostly civilized countries, it's far more economically sound and convenient to use a quad band...

You can use the same stylish "hip" phone you use in the US (say the quad band RAZR) and only put down a small amount for a sim card in whatever country you go to. And it'll work in buildings.

 

Yes and no... If you stick to the major cities you'll probably be ok, get out into "the country" a bit and coverage can easily get spotty... It doesn't take a lot, 5-10 miles outside a major city is all it takes. Plus, if secure communication is important to you (as is/was in my situation, to a certain degree), you want to stick with a US based service provider... Different countries, obviously, have different regulatory structures when it comes to that sort of thing, and you don't know how they control access to their information... For example, in Japan, it's simply easier to rent mobile phones for most people. ...and let's just say, when certain "entities" rent phones from certain lines of businesses the FSA has an interest in, you can bet your nice person call log information gets circulated to various other "entities"... you know what I'm sayin'? Can THEY monitor or log satellite calls, sure, but at least you don't make it easier for them by renting...


...and as Forrest Gump once said, "...and that's all I have to say about that."

h34r:

 

When was this? Late 90's?

 

Can't say for Maggie, but in the case I posted earlier, it was over the Christmas and New Years holidays this pase Dec.

Someone posted about being in countries without well developed GSM networks you may be better off with a sat phone. This is quite true, in our case, we were in the Philippines, the sat phone wouldn't work very well at all, especially in Manila, but the GSM phones worked almost everywhere (even in the jungels on Leyte). On the other hand, when our relative is in places like Saudi Arabia, the sat phone is his best bet.

A great site to go to to check out the bands, coverage maps, etc. is Here.

 

I quite disagree. The GSM networks are far better developed outside of the US, and to say that the coverage gets spotty 5-10 miles from a major city is very misleading. American carriers only in recent years started to switch to GSM and you only have a few companies offering it. The coverage in the rest of the world is far better than in the US, as you can’t get ANY service outside of some major cities.
Your opinion is based on 5-6 countries? That’s a little unfair to make such conclusion.
Also, in a lot of countries the incoming calls are free no matter where they originate from. That’s a huge cost advantage. I know in the States that’s unheard of. Cost is very important to many people. You were lucky to use it and not have to pay for it out of your own pocket. But I don’t understand why you would even want a satellite phone in the locations you have mentioned. They are not exactly of the beaten path, are they?

No, I am not sure what you are trying to say here. Those who are perhaps into contraband, arms smuggling, spying etc. might be concerned about getting their conversation logged, but an average traveler doesn’t care, and I’ve never heard of anyone even raising such issue.

I am not against satellite phones, they certainly do have their application if you can get them to work, such as yachting, mountaineering, serious expeditions, for research in remote locations.
My recent trips (September 2005) for which I specifically got my satellite phone turned out to be a complete embarrassment. I was roaming for hours with colleagues on one of the side trips being stuck for 4 days in a few Landies and I made a complete fool out of myself taking out my spanking new satellite phone. My calls were interrupted notoriously; it was either me not being able to hear the party I was talking to or the other way around or not being able to get a sat connection at all. It was quite embarrassing when a team of my Italian colleagues took out a regular quadband and told me to use it instead. You should have seen my face
Granted, out of around 60 phone calls 20 were successful, the rest were pretty much very bad.
This technology is certainly open to many improvements.
To sum it up, I would advise to be very cautious before signing up a contract.

Just following other posters recent experiences you can easily tell that a satellite technology is not that great.

For average traveler, whether you call them serious or not, the cost of the satellite phone is still way too high for what you get. I’ve meet people on the road traveling for 2 consecutive years without any phone, communicating only via internet cafes and would you not call them serious travelers just because they don’t use satellite phones?

Cheers!

 

:lol: That's funny... Sorry, but that's been my REAL LIFE experience. I was no more than 10 miles outside Vilnius when GSM usage bit the big one (and that's only one example). To sum it up, I'd rather have one constant than 100 bits and pieces, so to speak...

You don't understand what I'm saying here because your perspective is extremely naive. Doing ordinary legitimate business anywhere outside of most western developed countries is riskier than you probably think. I'll use a really crude example: Provide a service in a foreign country that may not exist in that country, or is very limited, start profiting from it (or acquiring good marketshare), and see how quickly the gov. goes to shut you down, or even throw you in jail because a "local" business entity gets jealous. As for the costs, maybe you should recheck modern day service plans. I would say they are just as expensive as cell phone were about 10 years ago, far from prohibitive (unless, of course, you're a 16 year old backpacking through Europe).

So yeah, cheers indeed!

 

Just checked with my carrier (T-Mobil), sampled the international rates from a few countries. Found the low to be $.49 for Canada, most of Europe (including the UK) to be $.99, Mexico $1.49, Japan at $1.99, and the Philippines a wopping $2.99, all rates are of course per min.

Since we ge to the Philippines a couple times a year, we choose local service. The rates for local service there are 8 Peso/min outgoing ($.16), and no charge for incoming.

My theoy is that you seem to find the GSM networks much more developed in emerging nations than the more developed. Reason being (in the case of the Philippines anyway) is that they never had a very developed land line system, the vast majority of people didn't have a phone. The cost of stringing and maintaining wires was cost prohibitive, cell towers on the other hand, no big deal.

Now don't get me started on CDMA (Sprint/Nextel Verison) :angry: smoke signals are more reliable, even on a windy day :lol:

 

Oh, I got a new phone...this one.

TREO 700w.

It's keen.

(I like the one at the start of this thread, btw!)

 

I'd love to hear more about how you like this phone. I currently have the motorola v710 but was looking at that treo. It's not like I have tons of meetings to schedule, etc. but I thought it would be nice to have a calender and also all my address in the phone. How much do you pay a month (if I can ask). IS it really expensive? I only pay like $60 a month and don't want to pay alot more. Is the camera decent?

thanks alot,

Peter B

 

Tell me more about he 700, I have a Treo 650 and like it a lot.

I'm curious about a couple things, first can you use a wifi SD card in it? The 650 has the wifi support disabled at the demand of the cell phone companies :angry: so you have to use a strange adaptor that works through the serial port. How is the current version of Windows Mobile? Finally, do they have a GSM version out yet?

 

Eh, expensive per month? Well...I can't lie. It's not as cheap as that. But I have all the Bells and Whistles with it, at least for the first month. I may not after the second month, but then again, I am liking the internet being there whenever I want it.