Satellite Phone Rentals

Did you ever face the problem of frequent call dropping, noisy disturbances and no signals at all, when using your mobile? This is the usual backdrop of cellular communications which are completely dependant on mobile towers.

The cell phones we generally use, always try to communicate with the nearest tower available and forward your calls to the required destination, the calls you receive are on the same principle that the nearest tower shall communicate with cell phone. The optimum distance of the tower has to be within 50km radius of the communicating cell phone to provide strong signals which result in voice calls of superior quality. The idea is that when you move further away from the particular tower, the next one close to you takes over the transmission. Therefore the whole area covered by the mobile transmission is divided into cells, and each cell has a transmitting tower.

Now suppose you move away to a region where there is no transmission towers, and hence not covered by the service provider, the quality of the call fails and ultimately your call gets disconnected. This generally occurs in the rural areas, where there is no mobile transmission service. It is at these places where you will need a satellite phone to get in touch with the world.

A satellite telephone, which is sometimes called Satphone, communicates directly with orbiting communication satellites. The communication architecture of such a system governs the area of transmission, whether limited to a region or the whole earth. A satellite phone is mobile and the handset has a size of a cell phone that came out in 1980s and early 1990s, and has a large retractable antenna system. There are fixed station satellite phones as found on board ships. This has a steerable microwave antenna system, which automatically tracks the satellite above.

Some of these phones utilise satellites in geostationary orbit, maintaining near-continuous coverage of the whole globe. The disadvantage in having a geostationary satellite system is that it requires a comparatively large antenna system for signal transmission and reception, because the satellite is about 22,000 miles away from the earth. Such a phone system gets to be bulky, similar to the size of terrestrial mobile phones in the earlier days. The other disadvantage is, that the phone system requires a clear view of the sky to transmit and would not work inside a building or covered place. These phones are especially used in places like, remote disaster areas, out in the sea, in the desert or on top of the mountains. It needs to look at the open sky to operate and will not work inside a building or a covered place.

There are phones which utilises low altitude satellite. The advantages include coverage of the total globe, providing wireless service to every corner of the earth. and orbits the earth at low altitude with an orbital time of 70 to 90 minutes. Since the satellite is not geosynchronous, it must complete orbiting the earth, resulting in providing complete coverage. Originally two companies deployed such satellite systems, and they are LEO, named after Low Earth Orbit, and Globestar. Unfortunately, the much service demand could not be generated and ultimately both went into bankruptcy. They are now operated by the owners, who took over the companies from their owner. These phones communicate with the satellite directly, unlike the regular cellular phones, which does so through transmitting towers.

The Iridium satellite constellation comprises of 66 active orbital satellites. The system has been named after the element Iridium and allows world-wide satellite communication facility. There are spare satellite systems within these 66 that are orbiting the earth and have been kept as spares. Each satellite has links with two neighbouring satellites, goes and aft in the same orbital plane. Time taken for the satellites to orbit pole to pole is roughly 100 minutes.

If you are traveling to areas where there are no communication facilities or none or little cellular coverage, you could rent a satellite phone.

Moving on to the cost of renting phones, there are two major companies that are providing this service and we will have a look at their rate plans. The two major companies that provide these services are Globalstar and, Iridium.

Globalstar has a variety of plans with annual fee starting from $450 to $6,600. You can go for a plan that suits your need. The emergency Liberty plan has an annual rent of $450 and the cost per minute is $1.49.There are no home minutes are included with this plan. Upper to this is the Liberty 600 plan which has an annual rent of $600 with the airtime charges of $.67 per minute for the first 900 home minutes. Higher to this is the Liberty 1800 plan that costs $780 annually and has an airtime of $0.29 per minute for the first 2,700 home minutes.

In the upper grade, there is Liberty 6000 with $1,440 as annual charges, having $0.16 per minute cost for first 9,000 home minutes. Then we have the Liberty 16800 plan at $3,300 annually and have a rate plan of $0.13 for first 25,200 minutes. Highest on the hierarchy is the Liberty 48000 plan which costs $6,600 annually and has a rate plan of $0.09 in the first 72,000 minutes. For all above plans, except the emergency plan, the user will be charged at $.99 per minute, exceeding the home minutes. The Liberty 48000 has $0.49 per minute call charge beyond the home minutes.

A fax service can also be obtained for all above plans at a cost of $479.40.

Apart from the rental plans mentioned above, there is the Freedom plan which has low monthly rent and comes with a one year agreement. The basic plan is the emergency Freedom plan which has a rent for $39.99 in with no home minutes. The next plan is the Freedom 50 plan which costs $50 monthly and has 75 home minutes with call charges at $0.67 per minute. The Freedom 150 plan has a monthly rent of $65, with 225 included home minutes at $0.29 per minute call charges. The Freedom 500 plan has a monthly rent of $120, having $0.16 for the 750 home minutes. Freedom 1400 has a monthly charge of $275 with $0.13 per minute call charges for the 2,100 home minutes.

Highest on the list is the Freedom 4000 plan with a monthly rent of $550, and has a charge of $0.09 per minute for the 6,000 included minutes. Additional airtime cost after home minutes is $.99 per minute. An optional fax service can be availed for Freedom plans costing $40. A handset is available separately for the above plans.

Moving on to the next service provider we have Iridium satellite phones and services. The Iridium plans are as follows.

The first plan is called the Iridium basic which has a rent of $79 for the first week and a $7 per day rent after that. Calls are charged at $1.79/min. The higher plan is called the Iridium 30, costing $127 for the first week and continuing with a rent of $6 per day. It has 30 free minutes included, after which a rate of $1.69 per call is applicable. The Iridium 60 costs $169 for the first week and $5 daily after that. This plan has 60 free minutes included, after which, the tariff is $1.59 per minute. The Iridium 150 costs $289 for the first week and a daily rent of $4 after that .It has 150 minutes included and there after, $1.49 per minute. Along with the above Iridium package, you also get an Iridium handset for the usage period.

In satellite telephony, there are basically two types of units used. One which is handheld and the other fixed. The starting price of handheld is $750 while the starting price of fixed equipment is $2,500 and goes upward to $3,000. Even then satellite phones are becoming popular because of its seamless and dedicated connectivity even in the remotest path