Globalstar or iridium

[keelbolt]

Globalstar looks a lot cheaper than Iridium, but am I sacrificing reliability and coverage? Most of my sailing is Med based, but may go a lot further depending on whims. Anyone got any relevant experience to share? Call costs? Reliability? Etc? Where do you buy your airtime? Know any good deals?

 

[Boatman]

No experience with Globalstar, but have used Iridium for the last few years with no problems. Ebay normally has handsets at less than 1/2 the normal price. Airtime from AST.

 

[Becky]

Have you considered a Thuraya Sat phone? We were going top be Med-based, and at the Boatshow I spoke to Ed Wildgoose who is a bit of an expert Iridium person, and was advised to go for a Thuraya. Cheaper, & faster downloads.

Which I did; but now having sold up the (unused) phone is redundant. And will be up for sale.

PM me if it is of any interest.

 

[chrisb]

i bought globalstar for azores trip 2006. worked well.able to make progress reports on passage. repeat repeat trip 2007 and coverage was poor and unreliable.my contract was through selex marine.they wrote to me [aug 2007] detailing problems with the globalstar network.i have cancelled my contract.the system is unreliable especially if you want it for emergency backup.avoid

 

[Spicemariner]

We have used Iridium for 6 years now and we have never not had coverage but we sail now mainly in Caribbean. Have found it cheaper to buy time in USA and in many places it is almost as cheap to use Iridium as local phones. We are heading for USA and have found their local SIM to be fairly expensive (you pay to receive and they bill per minute, always rounding up). It will certainly be cheaper to call home using the sat phone. We also download email if we can't get SSB reception.

 

[ianabc]

Spot messenger uses Globalstar and is much less expensive....