Satellite phone rentals

Didn't mean to hijack Scott's topic  :-[ But I gleaned some helpful first-hand knowledge of sat phones and several alternatives; Definitely food for thought.

Being boaters, we're used to EPIRB emergency locator beacons and DSC (digital selective calling - for emergency use) on VHF marine radios. But neither are intended for the kind of use I have in mind. Having a boat sink at sea and the water-activated sat beacon go off, there's a 'known' cavalry that will come looking. Needing a tow truck or some such while fishing in the mountains really requires some dialog, either voice or text.

No hijack. Exactly the info I was looking for. Looks like Iridium if we do it. For our purposes, aside from the "rescue" aspect, also need voice and text capability for both family and business. Maybe I can find something on eBay to at least save on hardware.

VallandMo, where did you find the $50/mo plan? During my early research the plans I've found are closer to $140-200 (but that is for rental so perhaps that's the difference). I'm getting the feeling that buying is probably the most economical route, but can you turn the service on and off? (sorta like the RV Dish network plan)

Hi Sun2Retire,

Sun2Retire said:

VallandMo, where did you find the $50/mo plan? During my early research the plans I've found are closer to $140-200 (but that is for rental so perhaps that's the difference).

Click to expand...

Just dug it up from my records (good thing I try and write *everything* down): http://www.roadpost.com/Iridium-Satellite-Phone-Monthly-Plans-and-Airtime-P705C280.aspx
They were the cheaper option at the time, and (according to that URL) they are still practising the same price, but again please do check it all yourself, as there could well be other resellers with lower prices by now.

Also, I remember they offered annual options, but there aren't any listed in the above page anymore (or perhaps I saw it at another page, and didn't write *that* one down...  :-\ ). I also remember the annual options could be cheaper, depending on the number of minutes/messages/etc, so you might want to look that up too.

Sun2Retire said:

I'm getting the feeling that buying is probably the most economical route, but can you turn the service on and off? (sorta like the RV Dish network plan)

Click to expand...

When I researched the matter extensively, I came to the conclusion that buying (and then getting a plan) was *way* less expensive than renting, by a factor-of-multiples difference (2 times or more, can't remember the right number now). That was in late 2014, so it could have changed; please examine the matter carefully as my info may well be out-of-date.

If you can, please post here again when you commit to your particular satellite SOS/communications solution; I for one would be very interested in hearing about the current status of the field.

Cheers,
--
  Vall.

Hi Sun2Retire,

Sun2Retire said:

No hijack. Exactly the info I was looking for. Looks like Iridium if we do it. For our purposes, aside from the "rescue" aspect, also need voice and text capability for both family and business. Maybe I can find something on eBay to at least save on hardware.

Click to expand...

I opted for the InReach in our case because we could afford to work with just messages (IIRC, they could get sent to/received from normal SMS phones and/or email) and the matter would never be so urgent as to not being able to wait until we could move back to the nearest area with cellphone reception.

One thing to consider is that the $50 Iridium satphone plan I mentioned includes only 10 minutes and 10 messages, so you could end up paying a lot more in overages or extras if you end up using the Iridium phone extensively... another thing is that the Iridium satphones use a different international code (8816), and are therefore considered an international call for anyone to call you from the US, even if you (and he/she) are in the US... and I researched the matter and the tariffs for those calls (at least for calls originating from the Brazilian telephony carriers) were *insanely* expensive.

Cheers,
--
  Vall.

Howdy Gary, Tom,

Gary RV Roamer said:

Tom,
I would think the SPOT Trace would be ideal for you and anyone who ravels alone in isolated places. It's not real expensive yet provides both emergency commo (via text) and a way for others to find you if you were injured or stranded in the back country. And some "peace of mind" for Chris too.
http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=128&refer=FrontpageBanner

Click to expand...

SPOT is a major competitor to the DeLorme InReach (or perhaps it's the other way around, as the Delorme product came later to the market), and a less expensive one at that. At the time, I considered it seriously, but in the end we opted for the Delorme because (a) the SPOT uses the Globalstar network, which was much more sparse (ie, less satellites in orbit) so more subject to coverage issues, and (b) there were a number of reports of folks that activated the SOS but did *not* get any response back. That last one really disqualified them for us...

But again, that was about 2 years ago, and things might have changed, so I urge anyone to research as the matter stands now (and if possible, post the results here for all of us to learn).

Cheers,
--
  Vall.

Spot Trace isn't great for actual communications - it's designed primarily as an insurance policy. Something you hope NOT to use. You would probably want to have somebody you could text to have them arrange for the real help you need (tow truck, ambulance, etc). You get low functionality, but low cost as well. You pays your money & you takes your pick! 

STOP THE PRESSES!

Sun2Retire, I was fiddling with Google and just got this: http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=123

So it seems that SPOT now offers not only their traditional tracking/SOS device, but also a full-blown phone, and with free calls to US and Canada, for purchase at only $550 MSRP. Amazing... and they also offer a $480/year plan for it: http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=122 So it becomes *way* cheaper (when you consider the free calls) than Iridium ever was.

I would still hesitate given they probably use the same GlobalStar network that was having coverage/reliabilty issues as recently as 2 years ago, but if someone wants to research the matter and find out whether they (meaning SPOT and/or GlobalStar teams) have cleared up their act, it could be a very interesting option for those needing voice...

Cheers,
--
  Vall.

Great info and sounds like it has potential. Will check it out

The iridium rental I linked to earlier doesn't appear to require the purchase of a "plan". You can purchase pre-paid minutes ($1.16-$1.69/min depending on quantity), or not buy any and get billed for actual usage at $1.75/min. The latter would seem to be the way I'd want to go, given my intended minimal (emergency) usage, at least for the first year.

See here and scroll down the page for details.

FWIW I'd only need the phone for 3-4 months a year.

Tom said:

The iridium rental I linked to earlier doesn't appear to require the purchase of a "plan". You can purchase pre-paid minutes ($1.16-$1.69/min depending on quantity), or not buy any and get billed for actual usage at $1.75/min. The latter would seem to be the way I'd want to go, given my intended minimal (emergency) usage, at least for the first year.

See here and scroll down the page for details.

FWIW I'd only need the phone for 3-4 months a year.

Click to expand...

This is kinda the direction I'm leaning. The SPOT thingy has very limited (35 character) inbound texting only, and texting is fairly important both because it's an often used form of communication which many of our tenants (and my kids) use, but it's usually a cheaper form due to less bandwidth.

Apparently some of the fairly old Iridium phones don't support texting but some "sorta old" ones do. I'm wondering if I could pick one up on eBay then setup a pay as you go. There are some Iridium phones for $200-500 on eBay. At $125-$250/mo rental seems like a possible alternative. Leave it in a drawer till you're going somewhere you need it then turn it on.

In March of 2015, I was training with a law enforcement/SAR helicopter crew based out of Kalispell, Montana, and we were dispatched to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area to locate and rescue a hiker who had pushed the Emer button on his SPOT transmitter when he began having chest pains (He was hiking alone). The hiker's son had gotten the satellite-relayed distress message and contacted the Sheriff's office. If you're not familiar with the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, it's thousands of square miles of some of the tallest, ruggedest mountains in the country - almost completely uninhabited.

From the time we got the message to the time we had the hiker in the aircraft, only about 90 minutes had elapsed - and that was mostly flight time. The SPOT device was dead-on accurate. He was exactly where his GPS coordinates said he would be. Pretty impressive little device.

Kev 

Tom said:

The iridium rental I linked to earlier doesn't appear to require the purchase of a "plan". You can purchase pre-paid minutes ($1.16-$1.69/min depending on quantity), or not buy any and get billed for actual usage at $1.75/min. The latter would seem to be the way I'd want to go, given my intended minimal (emergency) usage, at least for the first year.

See here and scroll down the page for details.

FWIW I'd only need the phone for 3-4 months a year.

Click to expand...

Update: gave these folks (Global.com) a call and talked about rates both for an owned phone and for rental.

Using Tom's example of 4 month's usage per year here's the costs I came up with:

Buy phone: eBay $300 avg price Iridium 9505A (varies between $200-500) + 200 min prepaid SIM card good for 12 mos ($445) = $745. Thereafter the following year would cost $445 for just the prepaid card

Rent phone: $140/mo + $100 shipping round trip = $660 if phone is never used (airtime not included). Thereafter, same price (obviously) so second year would cost about $130 more than owning

So the absolute cheapest route for 4 month's usage during one year, never actually using the phone, is to rent ($660/year for 4 mos). Cost to own is $445/yr for year 2 and after putting one ahead with ownership in year 3 and after. If using for less than 4 months renting becomes a better deal unless you actually use the phone during the times you're out of cell range. Assuming you actually did use 200 min on both the rented and owned phones, cost to own first year is still $745, but cost to rent jumps to $1010.

Pre-paid SIM cards expire so can't just buy one and sit on it. The 75 min cards expire in a month, the 200 min cards expire in a year

Thanks for that analysis Scott.

Hello Scott,

Sun2Retire said:

Update: gave these folks (Global.com) a call and talked about rates both for an owned phone and for rental.
[...]
Pre-paid SIM cards expire so can't just buy one and sit on it. The 75 min cards expire in a month, the 200 min cards expire in a year

Click to expand...

Thanks for the detailed info, Scott!

The prices are much better than the last time I checked. In fact, considering only the monthy cost (445/12= $37.08) they are actually cheaper than the DeLorme InReach plans w/ "unlimited" messages.

One thing: have you asked about texting? Is any included in those Iridium plans you asked about, or do they cost extra?

Cheers,
--
  Vall.

Oops, forgot to add that. The following is still from Global.com:

Texting from pre-paid SIM card: Inbound texts are free. Each outbound text uses one minute of airtime from your plan.

Texting from rental phone: Inbound texts are free. Each outbound text is 75 cents.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

But wait, there's more....

Talked to Roadpost, same questions. Their rates are better:

Iridium 9505A rental: $8/day + $40 shipping round trip, no minimum rental period. With no pre-purchase, airtime is $1.79/min outbound, inbound calls from US are free to you but not caller (see below). Inbound texts free, outbound texts are 69 cents each.

If you already have a phone, they also have pre-paid SIM cards, but they will extend the 75 minute card expiry out to a total of 4 months (you call them a couple days before the standard 30 day expiry and they extend, no charge). 75 minute card is $150. This means instead of buying the 200 minute card from Global to cover a 4 month period (as noted in my previous post), you could buy just the 75 minute card from Roadpost and make it last the whole 4 months (assuming of course you didn't use it up). On the pre-paid card inbound texts are free, outbound texts are 75 cents. Seems like you could send a text to someone asking them to call. However....... while there is no charge to you as the Iridium phone user, the caller will get charged big time. To call an Iridium phone from a Verizon cell phone is about $6/min.

Hello Scott,

Thanks again re: texts. Free to receive is good, Delorme InReach pays (or counts against plan quota) for every message, sent or received.

I just searched my records and found these, posting it here in case anyone finds it interesting:

• Iridium Satellite Emergency 9-1-1 Service Launch Q & A, Feb 2005. Do not know if it's up-to-date (probably not), but we dialed 911 from our Iridium phone (friend's car got stuck and needed a tow in the middle of nowhere) and was indeed answered by a Emergency Service Center, which put us in touch with local SAR service, which warned him the tow would cost $$$ and then put him in touch with a local tow provider.

.

• Satellite Phone Store: rented an Iridium phone from them for 2 weeks in early 2013. Total cost was $192.73, including 9505A phone, mag antenna for the RV roof, 25 minutes of service, and two-way 2nd-day UPS shipping.

Cheers,
--
  Vall.

There is also a new satellite hub that acts as Wi-Fi hotspot to connect iOS or Android phones, tablets, and laptops to the Inmarsat satellite network, the  Wideye iSavi -  http://goo.gl/ushRrB  Connection speed around 240 Kbps send, 380 Kbps receive.
Major advantage is that it is easily portable, and powered by rechargeable battery of solar panel. It supports supports 3G SIM roaming with a few selected Mobile Network Operators 3G SIM cards.

Hello,

voyaginator said:

There is also a new satellite hub that acts as Wi-Fi hotspot to connect iOS or Android phones, tablets, and laptops to the Inmarsat satellite network, the  Wideye iSavi -  http://goo.gl/ushRrB  Connection speed around 240 Kbps send, 380 Kbps receive.
Major advantage is that it is easily portable, and powered by rechargeable battery of solar panel. It supports supports 3G SIM roaming with a few selected Mobile Network Operators 3G SIM cards.

Click to expand...

Interesting. But given that the inMarsat "network" is geostationary, it (1) consists of just one satellite for North America, which (2) sits very low in the South sky, and (3) has relatively high latency, I would advise anyone willing to invest the $1300 the device is being sold for at Amazon (to say nothing of the service plan, see below) to wait for some more reviews... it has just one review so far, which I think is too little for this amount of investment.

Also, the device is being sold at significantly lower cost ($1100 instead of $1300) straight from the seller's website. 

I was also able to locate their "airtime plans" page, and the cost is *really* outrageous: $375 for a monthly 100MB (yes, that's 1/10 of a GB) of traffic... and each additional MB costs $3.75. Wow... a single GB a month would then cost the "bargain" of $3750(!!!). And one can easily go *many* times over 1GB just by reading email and light web usage. Their largest (and, per MB, less horrendously expensive) package is 2GB for $6060, which works out to $3030 per GB. Still totally insane IMHO. I'm (sticker) shocked...

If I ever need this kind of "eye in the sky" connectivity, I would go with a standard, parabolic antenna sat link installation like this couple is doing. Granted, the initial investment is larger ($6000 plus installation, instead of $1100/1300), but the cost per GB is just $25 (for the smallest, 5GB package) instead of $3750, so after just a couple of GBs, the initial cost would be more than paid for.

Re-reading the above, I think I must be understanding something wrong... over $3000 per GB *is* insane. But if I'm making some mistake, I sure can't see it...

Cheers,
--
  Vall.