Iridium- good idea? (Comments)

[Giles]

Now that Iridium handsets are avaliable below 200GBP, I'm seriously considering aquiring one. I'm planning a trip from Cape Town to Brazil to the Caribean in March. Anyone out there with who has had experiance with Iridum? Any other comments re Satelite phones/communication?

Giles

 

[drawp]

Iridium as a company have an interesting & turblent history. Lots of stuff on the internet about them. Personally, I would look hard at the structure of the company before buying their products. Will they still be in business in 6 months time?

 

[Guest]

Well we just bought one at the show £175.00 and it arrived today. Now that the American military want it, I don't think there should be any problem. The facility to SMS free from Iridium site is just what we need so that the kids can reach us cheap, BT are charging £3.00 minute to call phone. They told us at show that it needed to be outside to work but it is working just fine inside the house, haven't tried it on the boat yet.

 

[ranga]

I went to the boatshow not looking for an Iridium phone but bought one because it was so cheap. As a piece of safety equipment for less than 200 quid you can't beat it, especialy on a long passage. I hope I won't have to call home from the liferaft though!

As far as the financial structure of the company is concerned, I understand that the current owners bought the Iridium infrastructure for a song..a lot less than the billions it cost to put it up in the sky in the first place.