Which satellite phone is right for me?

Recreational (hiking, mountain climbing)

Iridium

Globalstar (check coverage maps!)

Business Traveler

Inmarsat

Thuraya (except the Americas, check coverage maps!)

“Low Cost” Emergency

Globalstar (check coverage maps!)

Alaska, North Pole, Antarctica

Iridium

Ocean

Iridium

Inmarsat

First of all, two important things the phone carriers don’t bring much attention to:

1.     Satellite phones do not work indoors or in a car, unless you specifically have hardware that connects to an external antenna on the roof.

2.     Satellite phones are banned in some countries.  Most notably, you can be arrested just for bringing one to India.  They will think you’re a terrorist.  Other countries that ban satphones include: China, North Korea, Cuba, and generally any country that is extremely repressive.  Do check it out before you go!

If the lack of ability to use it indoors doesn’t keep you from buying, most likely the prices will.  Phones start at around $500, and service costs about the same as a cell phone but with the added cost of around $1-2 per minute of airtime.  Generally, the more you pay per month, the more included minutes you get, and the less the additional minutes cost.  But it bottoms out around $1 per minute regardless of carrier.

Now for the details I didn’t want to bore you with earlier.

There are four major satellite phone carriers: Iridium, Globalstar, Inmarsat, and Thuraya.  Satellite phones are “locked” into a carrier’s network, i.e. you cannot use a Globalstar phone on the Iridium network, for example.

There is no “best” satellite phone carrier, since each has its own advantages and disadvantages.  You will need to choose based on how and where you intend to use the phone.  Comparing airtime prices is a tricky business and may lead to loss of sanity.

The satellite carriers will be most unhelpful in your decision process, since of course every one of them will recommend their own service.  Even looking at online reviews, you will find many people heavily biased to whatever phone they picked.  It’s not a one-size-fits-all world!

For my recommendations above, I chose three parameters to guide me, which I believe are the most critical.  They are coverage area / orbit, likelihood to maintain a phone call, and price.  I did not consider voice quality, since they are all fairly similar and it’s subjective.

Now, let’s examine how I came to my conclusions.  First, the recreational user.

Inmarsat and Thuraya both use geostationary satellites, which means if you’re on the wrong side of a steep hill or grouping of trees, you will never get a signal.  For this reason, I would not recommend them when hiking and such.  If you get injured, you may not be able to move to where there’s a signal.  But if you have some sky visible, you will always be able to get a signal, some of the time, from Iridium.  The same is almost true for Globalstar (less likely closer to the poles).

Next, the business traveler.  Here, I placed heavy emphasis on being able to maintain a long phone call without being cut off.  Only systems with geostationary satellites can offer this feature, which limits you to Inmarsat and Thuraya.

For the “low cost” emergency phone, I chose the one with the cheapest service plan when no minutes are used.  Globalstar ties with Iridium at $25/mo., but comes with 10 airtime minutes per month (Iridium has zero minutes on this plan).  Additional minutes are $1.99 Globalstar, and $4.50 Iridium (ack!).  Consider also that a Globalstar phone is $500 new, whereas Iridium starts at $700 for an old model used phone.

I want to also caution against using pre-pay service.  If there’s an emergency, you don’t want to be stuck without service and unable to refill just because you ran out of minutes.  This completely defeats the purpose of having an emergency phone.

                                                       

If you’re going to Alaska, Antarctica, or the North Pole, you’re absolutely going to want Iridium.  You may be able to get Inmarsat or Globalstar service in certain areas.  But that’s pushing the limits of their reach.  You don’t want to lose service just because there’s a low hill a few miles away, especially when you’re far from civilization.

Lastly, those of you who have sea legs have the options of Iridium or Inmarsat.  Both will offer excellent service at sea.  You may want to lean toward Inmarsat because of slightly lower pricing and (supposedly) slightly better sound quality.

There are many other details I did not cover, because I felt they were not particularly important.  Just beware that calling TO a satellite phone can be obscenely expensive!  You can get around this by having the caller text message their phone number.  Then you simply call them back.

Now, I want to cover sound quality once again.  You may be concerned that the phone will sound really bad or have a long time delay.  Without getting into a lot of technical detail, it boils down to approximately this:

Inmarsat: OK sound quality, medium delay

Iridium: OK to poor sound quality (it varies), short to medium delay

Globalstar: Good sound quality, short delay

Thuraya: Good sound quality, medium delay

So, if sound quality and time delay were the primary concern, you would gravitate toward Globalstar.  But all the sound quality in the world doesn’t do you any good if there’s no signal.

Speaking of no signal, rumors of Globalstar’s death are somewhat exaggerated.  As I write this (May 2013), brand new satellites are coming online, which will restore the constellation to full service.  Whether or not the company will remain in business is another matter!

Background:

I am an electrical engineer, and I personally have only used Inmarsat.  But my interest in the subject had led me to read a lot about the different phones and technologies.  I realized it is rather complicated trying to compare one phone carrier to another, especially for someone who has never looked into this before.  So I wanted to make a simple user-friendly guide to pass along what I have learned.