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Satellite Phones - Weeding through the Maze?

Rick R.

Contributing Partner
I am considering buying a sat phone for offshore use. With elderly parents and a business to run, I need to be in contact to be off shore for extended periods of time.

Having researched the three main players (Global Star, Inmarsat and Irridium), I have read that most like the Irridium. I rented an Irridium sat phone several years ago for a cruise and it worked fine.

Some complaints about the Global Star have been dropped calls and limited service. The Inmarsat had a higher upfront price but a better plan in 6 month increments.

I spoke with a dealer about renting one for a 10 day offshore delivery Im supposed to do in a couple weeks and she swears Global Star has invested in major upgrades to their infrastructure. No more dropped calls?

She said that she rents and sells all three netowrks and of the clients who rent from her, Global Star has the best quality and best airtime plans.

Spot has the new Spotphone (which is Global Star), but in reading customer reviews on West marine's website, I think 4 out of 5 were negative.

So I ask you, is this a can of worms topic like which motor oil is best or can you shed some light on what your experiences have been?
 

Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Practical Sailor (Feb 2014) likes the Spot, although they haven't finished testing. Can't go wrong for $500.

Unfortunately, only near-coast California coverage, and no Hawaii at all.
 

windjunkee

Member III
Inmarsat has the new model for around $650. Its entry level and the owner of the Marine Electronics store I frequent really didn't have good things to say about it. All my research had indicated Inmarsat has the best system for data but maybe not the handheld. We had an Iridium for Transpac. The voice transmission use was good - no issues - but we racked up HUGE bills trying to download data, since you get charged when linking to the system, linking the system to sailmail, linking sailmail to your inbox and linking inbox to the computer. We almost always went through 4 -8 dropped calls trying to get our updated GRIBs. Now, I do understand that since 2011, Iridium has upgraded its equipment, so perhaps the experience has gotten better.

I'm borrowing the Iridium for Voice of Reason for next month's Guadalupe race. I'll be buying a $500 Sim Card that gives me 500 minutes. That should be more than enough. I'll report back when we're done

Jim McCone
Voice of Reason E-32 Hull #134
Redondo Beach, CA
 

Rick R.

Contributing Partner
Thanks Jim.

i purchased an Iridium 9505a from a friend for $300 today. He travels worldwide doing exotic fishing and hunting expeditions and says it has worked for him everywhere, even in Antarctica!

The plan I got provides 20 minutes a month with unused minutes rolling over for $59 per month (12 month agreement). Not bad.

Now I will be able to stay in touch offshore.

Shopping for plans is such a shell game and confusing.
Rick
 

windjunkee

Member III
Rick,

The phone we're using is also the Iridium 9505. I ended up buying a pre-paid sim card from satphonestore.com - 300 minutes for $550. Not a monthly plan since we are only borrowing the phone and not keeping it. I went with XGate as my satphone email provider. It does the compression and connections offline to minimize minutes used. Although XGate offers a weather service, I am using saildocs to send email GRIB files twice daily during the race.

Good luck on your sail.

Jim McCone
Voice of Reason E-32 Hull #134
Redondo Beach, CA
 

Rick R.

Contributing Partner
Thanks Jim!

Knowing that you used it in the TRANSPAC last year is a real confidence booster for me. I hadn't thought about using it for grib files but I should have.

I hated getting into an annual contract but I figured this way we could use the phone for emergency communication (at least until enough minutes rollover to order a pizza...lol).

They told me that I can both send and receive texts with this model. Inbound is free, outbound consumes one minute of air time.

We signed with Satmodo.com. Nice folks, Scott was very helpful.
Rick
 
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