Sat Phone Usage Costs

[Petronella]

We have the opportunity to purchase an Iridium 9555 secondhand but unused at an attractive price.

Can anyone tell me how much we might pay for say 30 minutes of phone calls, 20 texts, 20 daily grib downloads and 20 daily half page blog uploads? I can't seem to find this type of information anywhere in a format that makes any sense.

Thanks
John

 

[BobnLesley]

In some respects respects the cost of the calls etc. is the smaller part of the equation. The calls/text 'usage' you've listed might well cost about £50-60, the grib downloads another £120 and the blog updates (No Photos) another £40.
But in addition you'll need to pay for line rental @ about £45/month and to get the gribs/blog through, some sort of 'compression package at about £100/year.

We've a 9555 and operate it through Mailasail - costs here: https://www.mailasail.com/Communication/Iridium-Airtime

When doing you calculations, allow somewhere between fifteen (if you're lucky) and 45 minutes for setting up the system in the first place. To get the 9555 to 'talk' to the computer you'll be pushed into also buying a 'red box to make it compatible with modern (Windows10) computers, this is NOT vital. Ours works happily enough without it on a computer loaded with Windows-7 and we've a couple of friends who're using them to talk to Windows-10 computers sans box too; I've no idea how, but I do know a man who does and reckons it's a 30-minute job. If you're not computer savvy, then get someone who is to do the set-up, if they know sat-phones too, that' an advantage.

 

[cherod]

Daily ( unlikely ) weekly , monthly , annual ? I wish people could be more precise

 

[davethedog]

We went the other route and have an Iridium go! that allows you to tether a phone to it to make voice calls and also download emails, gribs, predict wind etc . it also does tracking too.

We paid 150 euro a month when we used it for the trip to the Canaries and that gave us unlimited data and more than enough voice calls so at least we could plan.

 

[castone001]

davethedog.....with the Iridium Go did you have any issues with connectivity? Call drops etc? Pretty Reliable?

 

[davethedog]

davethedog.....with the Iridium Go did you have any issues with connectivity? Call drops etc? Pretty Reliable?

We used the call function only 2 or 3 times but it was reliable, although still has the lag inherent with sat phones. We also have the external antenna kit and that makes a big difference to the signal quality.

We found the iridium go very good and will be activating another sim card when we leave here.

Regards

DTD