Satellite phones

moi | na | moi

[Chu Gary]

I'm headed to Asia very soon and want to buy a satellite phone for use in the US. I plan to buy a Sony 900.

Are there any issues with using sat phones in the U.S. - I'm sure we have Freepers who know.

Thanks in advance.

Gary

[Chu Gary]

I'm headed to Asia very soon and want to buy a satellite phone for use in the US. I plan to buy a Sony 900.

Are there any issues with using sat phones in the U.S. - I'm sure we have Freepers who know.

Thanks in advance.

Gary

[John Robertson]

I have owned Handspring's (Palm One's) Treo 600 for several months now, and I'm still amazed at the versatility of the product. I have a GSM model (my carrier is T-Mobile), and supposedly it will work anywhere in the world. As for a "satellite" model...I'm pretty sure mine is just that. Take a look at the product. It's got a camera, the Palm OS, thousands of programs available for it, all the Palm Organizer functions...not enough space, as they say.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

An army friend just returned from Okinawa and he has to have a chip changed to work here.
I don't know what model or age of the cell phone.

[The Electrician]

The Treo is a nifty device, but it is not a satellite phone.

[Lurk-know-more]

Really interested in satellite phone?

[Boiler Plate]

There are three different orbits that satellites travel in Low (LEO) Medium (MEO) and Geosynchronous (GEO). LEO and GEO can be used everywhere the MEO systems are usually elleptical orbits and only cover specific regions.
The best LEO system is iridium and the best and the best GEO is Inmarsat. InmarSat is part of IntelSat which is the only phone system connected directly to every country in the world.
GSM is not a satellite phone and will not provide coverage everywhere on the planet but unless you are planning to be in the middle of nowhere it is probably the best way to go.

[AZLiberty]

Sony Ericsson P900 is a great phone for many reasons, and multiband, but not satellite phone. Since it uses GSM, you can use it almost anywhere, but you'll need to buy a local SIM card wherever you go.

We recently visited Japan with another family. We wanted to be able to keep in touch while we were in Japan, and found -- after much search -- that the cheapest option for basic communication is the Vodafone's pre-paid phone. You can buy the phone for about about 50 bucks or so, and then feed it phone cards. Calls are 100 yen (a little less than a dollar) a minute, in six second increments. The phone can make international calls, though I think that about doubles the per minute rate.

My daughter stayed on in Japan. In Japan, incoming calls don't count against your minutes, so we can call her pretty cheaply. The best service I've found for international calls is OneSuite, which offers 4 cents a minute to Japanese land lines and 19 cents a minute to Japanese cell phones.