photodog
Lord High Commander of Upper Broughton and Gunthor
That Isat phone looks like a great deal... cheapest new one I have every seen!
Use of satellite phone in remote Scottish anchorages
- Thread starter John_Clarke
- Start date
Simondjuk
Well-Known Member
Going back to the conventional mobile option for a moment, Orange and O2 have a network sharing arrangement, so there's no need for anyone going down the 'have a phone on each service provider and one might work' route to have one on each network. I seem to recall that the feature had to be activated by confirmation of an SMS however, so it's not default behaviour.
PembrokeshirePromise
Well-Known Member
That does look like good value - and the fact that the minutes don't expire (or at least can be rolled over).
If you do go that route I'd be very interested to hear how you get on in W Scotland anchorages.
One slight down on it (for me anyway) is that for some reason the data transfer is far slower that other networks / phones.
From: http://www.satellitephones.co.uk/sales/which-satphone-to-coose/
" iSatPhone PRO supports a 2.4kbps data connection"
"The Iridium 9575 Extreme supports a data connection of 12kbps, or up to 26kbps when used with the optional AccessPoint accessory"
Anyone know why this is - phone ? Network ?
May not matter to you anyway..
If you do go that route I'd be very interested to hear how you get on in W Scotland anchorages.
One slight down on it (for me anyway) is that for some reason the data transfer is far slower that other networks / phones.
From: http://www.satellitephones.co.uk/sales/which-satphone-to-coose/
" iSatPhone PRO supports a 2.4kbps data connection"
"The Iridium 9575 Extreme supports a data connection of 12kbps, or up to 26kbps when used with the optional AccessPoint accessory"
Anyone know why this is - phone ? Network ?
May not matter to you anyway..
John_Clarke
Well-Known Member
If we buy one this summer I will post on this forum how we get on with it.
I agree - the slow data transmissions is unfortunate but the data cost via satellite is expensive. We use grib data over the mobile network and have found that it is great for getting an idea of how the next five days weather may develop.
Inmasat have fast data modems for about £1,000. I believe they have more powerful aerials/transmission than the phone.
goboatingnow
Well-Known Member
The Isatphonepro is very good value. Outside the US the prepaid minutes are much better then Iridium.
Just to correct a few things, Isatphone uses small number of geo stationary satellites, Iridium uses a network of low earth orbit satellites. Iridium does not suffer any issues of horizon, as birds are in effect passing overhead. Hand off from sat to sat can result in dropped calls that is my experience. Isatphone obviously has problems as you travel north, Irisium works at the poles.
both have approx 2400 bps raw data throughput, ( if cannot be more, no matter what someones says), much marketing nonsense is given over to compression rates etc)
I cannot speak for Isatphone, expect for a friends of mine experience, its seems less sensitive then Iridium, ( given the distance the sats at Im not surprised). He found it need clear sky to work. My experience is my Iridium worked inside the cabin with the antenna extended.
Both models do SMS texting at good costs. I see no real value in the Delorme Inreach unless prices drop a lot. SPOT has other issues.
Right now I agree Isatphonepro is terrific value, buy one.
Just to correct a few things, Isatphone uses small number of geo stationary satellites, Iridium uses a network of low earth orbit satellites. Iridium does not suffer any issues of horizon, as birds are in effect passing overhead. Hand off from sat to sat can result in dropped calls that is my experience. Isatphone obviously has problems as you travel north, Irisium works at the poles.
both have approx 2400 bps raw data throughput, ( if cannot be more, no matter what someones says), much marketing nonsense is given over to compression rates etc)
I cannot speak for Isatphone, expect for a friends of mine experience, its seems less sensitive then Iridium, ( given the distance the sats at Im not surprised). He found it need clear sky to work. My experience is my Iridium worked inside the cabin with the antenna extended.
Both models do SMS texting at good costs. I see no real value in the Delorme Inreach unless prices drop a lot. SPOT has other issues.
Right now I agree Isatphonepro is terrific value, buy one.
Submariner!
Active Member
iSat runs on 3 x Geo stationary satellites - its an Inmarsat system. They were quite late coming to market with a portable handset but it was produced to win back some of the ground lost against Thuraya.
Iridium I have used a fair amount. In places its good, but you have to keep in mind that its low earth orbiting satellites which move fast. As one satellite drops to the horizon, its means to hand you to the next - does not always happen and the call is dropped.
The organisation I work for had a load out in Darfur, calls dropped so often that we swapped them for Thuraya.
On the data, another commentator was quite correct about sales fold over hyping speeds. Always judge on raw data. 2.4K is dead slow. Compression enhances performance, but its not that different to using winzip to compress a text file rather than sending clear text in an email - you will reduce the file down to fraction of its size which is what you want as you will be spending less time on line.
If the need is for stable communication once you have dialed, then I would go with isat. In the med, I would go for Thuraya.
Useful tip for folks, Thuraya has roaming arrangements with most major GSM operators. This means that if you place your vodafone SIM in the Thuraya satphone, you can make calls. It will cost you £6.00 per minute, but if its for rare use, backup etc, then its a cheap option in the long run as you would not pay subs to a sat-phone provider. I have not tried this with other satphones though!
Before you rush out and get a Thuraya, Coverage will be a bit poor in northern Scotland.
Iridium I have used a fair amount. In places its good, but you have to keep in mind that its low earth orbiting satellites which move fast. As one satellite drops to the horizon, its means to hand you to the next - does not always happen and the call is dropped.
The organisation I work for had a load out in Darfur, calls dropped so often that we swapped them for Thuraya.
On the data, another commentator was quite correct about sales fold over hyping speeds. Always judge on raw data. 2.4K is dead slow. Compression enhances performance, but its not that different to using winzip to compress a text file rather than sending clear text in an email - you will reduce the file down to fraction of its size which is what you want as you will be spending less time on line.
If the need is for stable communication once you have dialed, then I would go with isat. In the med, I would go for Thuraya.
Useful tip for folks, Thuraya has roaming arrangements with most major GSM operators. This means that if you place your vodafone SIM in the Thuraya satphone, you can make calls. It will cost you £6.00 per minute, but if its for rare use, backup etc, then its a cheap option in the long run as you would not pay subs to a sat-phone provider. I have not tried this with other satphones though!
Before you rush out and get a Thuraya, Coverage will be a bit poor in northern Scotland.
goboatingnow
Well-Known Member
Why would you want to do that, given that iridium and Isatphone are around $1 a minute worldwide.?????
Submariner!
Active Member
Some people are not interetsed in worldwide. They just want a back up for thier sailing patch. Personally I use Iridium as I travel to a lot of remote places in my line of work.
There is an ongoing subscription of $25 per month whether you use the satphone or not, so if you are mostly in GSM range, and mainly sail in the Thuraya area of coverage, and have need of a satphone for perhaps one or two short calls a year, then in the longer run, its a cheaper option.
Clearly this is not an option for all yachties, but it may work for some.
PembrokeshirePromise
Well-Known Member
Thanks all for clarification on data transmission rates. I'm aware of differences between compressed and raw data rates and agree you should always compare raw rates.
However very interesting to hear that all systems have a max base rate of 2400 (though I did see some suggestion that rates can be slightly faster depending on aerials/atmospherics etc - but it was only slightly)- that's not something I'd picked up from marketing blurb - as you say its always obfuscated by compression rates etc etc. Clearly however you do it - its relatively expensive - but I've found Iridium OK (and useful) for gribs and short emails on occasion - so interesting if ISatPhone will be broadly equivalent - at better rates
However very interesting to hear that all systems have a max base rate of 2400 (though I did see some suggestion that rates can be slightly faster depending on aerials/atmospherics etc - but it was only slightly)- that's not something I'd picked up from marketing blurb - as you say its always obfuscated by compression rates etc etc. Clearly however you do it - its relatively expensive - but I've found Iridium OK (and useful) for gribs and short emails on occasion - so interesting if ISatPhone will be broadly equivalent - at better rates
Submariner!
Active Member
There is a lot of rot spoken about satelite communications by sales folk, many of these people are set up to ship boxes and do not know their subject.
Part of my day job is to run the technology for an international aid organisation, where I have been for 13 years. As we are global, we use a wide range of products.
Haiti was an interesting situation which places a massive spotlight on sals folk when some emergency response charities arrived in Haiti with Thuraya Satellite phones. Haiti is actually a few thousand miles from the Thuraya footprint!
Irridium is quite adequate for small emails and grib data. Although if you spend a lot of time sending emails, you are paying a lot of money for the internet airtime. Based on $1 per minute, the data rate is 2.4Kbits per second.
An understanding of bits and bytes are important. There are 8 bits to the byte. File sizes are measured in Bytes and internet connections are in bits per second.
2.4 Kbits = 0.3 Kbytes per second.
Here is some more maths to give an indication of what data costs to send -
1 Megabyte = 1024 Kilobytes
1024 Kbytes and 0.3 KBytes per second will take 56 minutes to send. At $1 per minute airtime, you could say that 1MB of data exceeeds $60 as every time an irridium is used to connect, there is a ceratin amount of dead time used up to establish the connection.
Globalstar and Irridium have both secured funding to launch new satelites, and on the roadmaps for both companies, data connections will be faster.
Inmarsat's stategy for the isatphone (I was at Inmarsat in London for the launch), was to provide a cheap device for voice. Data is a secondary objective
For those who have greater needs for data, the options to consider are:
1> Sailmail (HF based, email only) $250 per year.
2> Inmarsat BGAN (Marine version is called Fleet broadband). Data costs $6 per Megabyte.