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Looking for the ultimate in being Landline Free?

A satelite phone with an omni-directional antenna/service is the way to go.

These phone systems don't require a dish that aims to the sky, but rather just use a cell-phone-style antenna that doesn't have to be aimed at any part of the sky in particular. The satelites that the devices communicate with are actually constantly moving anyways, unlike, say, a DirecTV, Dishnetwork or Bell Expressvu system.

I will cover other systems, like Thuraya, in a future article, or update to this one. For now, I'll cover the "Big 2".

Globalstar

Globalstar is actually having a number of problems with their satelites, more specifically, the 2-way communications part of their satellites (ie: the kind used for voice communication). It is to the point where you can only use their service during limited very-specific periods of time each day, for certain periods of time.

Globelstar Service Availability

It is at the point where their website (which you likely may not have access to when you need it) predicts when you will and won't have service in a geographic location to the second. Generally, there is at least some coverage every hour of every day, and the windows of availability seem to range from about 5 minutes at the minimum, to 1 hour.

Supposedly they are launching new satelites which will fix this problem, but this may take a while, and who knows where they'll get the money from?

But for what it's worth, their current prices are dirt cheap (cheaper than some Canadian cell phone plans even), and maybe will get grandfathered if and when they do get all of their stuff together.

Global Star's coverage is mainly in land areas of the world, so don't get their service if you're going to be on a ship, or stranded on a small island in the Pacific.

Iridium

Coverage is very vast, in fact, it is actually best over the north and south poles due to the fact that the satelites cover that region more frequently than any other, but it does offer 100% world coverage (as long as you have a proper view of the sky).

Confusingly, the Iridium parent company doesn't really sell their own product, but rather depend on a set of dealers based in each country. So, if you're an expat, perhaps see what the prices are like in the various places that you have ties with.

Their prices are high (we're talking $1+ per minute here people), and the bandwidth of their connections is low, resulting in very noticeable compression artifacts (like an mp3 compressed way too much). Having said that, their service does work, and is even used by the US military due to its wide coverage.

Second-hand phones are available online, such as on Ebay, but watch out for things like battery life, and models (as there are, for example, the 9505A model, and the 9505 model, so don't get confused).

Globalstar vs. Iridium

There was a comparative report done in around 2002 between the two services. However, given Globalstar's recent problems, it is hard to do a direct comparison. Back then, they found better data transfers and better call-drop statistics with Globalstar. However, I'd imagine that this is not quite so today.

But one take home message was that Globalstar actually had _much_ better call quality than Iridium's satelite telephone service. Of course, that's when you are able to pick up the Globalstar service.

On one study's scale, Globalstar's sound quality was considered to be as good or better than a cell phone's 23% of the time, but Iridium's was never considered to exceed this threshold at least once in their informal testing. That is an interesting statistic.

Conclusion of Globalstar vs. Iridium

If you truly need worldwide coverage at any and all times, Iridium is your only choice, and you'll pay for it :)

If you want low prices and don't quite need 100% availability, it sounds like Globalstar is the way to do. Not a good phone for 100% absolute emergency usage, but if your message can wait an hour to be sent, then you should be okay with it. Globalstar is not a good idea for multi-hour conversations, or for field applications requiring a 24/7 connection (even if low-bandwidth)