All about satellite phones

A satellite phone is nothing more than a type of cell phone that, unlike any conventional mobile phone, provides service almost anywhere. They are generally more expensive than cell phones, providing significant ability to receive and make phone calls anytime, anywhere, regardless of local cell phone service or geographic boundaries.

ID

A satellite phone connects to an orbiting satellite to achieve communication. This is different from a conventional mobile phone that connects to a local and land service tower. Although mobile phone networks use satellites to achieve a wider communication radius, mobile phones do not dial these satellites directly.

Characteristics

Several satellite telephone networks use an interconnected network of satellites in geosynchronous orbit that allows the network to achieve global coverage with only three or four satellites. The other method of satellite telephone communication is to place the satellites in low Earth orbit. This, however, requires more satellites to achieve global coverage. However, they can be smaller to reduce launch costs.

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A satellite phone’s microwave transceiver provides notoriously poor service indoors. In this sense, its reliability and performance is worse than that of a cell phone. In addition, networks that rely on geosynchronous satellites often experience a transmission delay of more than one second. This is because the satellites are located about 37,000 miles in space. This means that each signal has to travel approximately 46,000 miles from one phone to another. Also, a satellite phone headset is more expensive than a mobile phone. In fact, both the phone and the service are priced much higher than conventional cell phones. Calling satellite phones from landlines or mobiles is also very expensive, although this hardly costs anything to the owner of the satellite phone. However, satellite phones should be the preferred device if you want reliable communication in remote areas where cell phone networks are weak.

Considerations

Generally, a satellite phone is assigned its own special country code. For example, Inmarsat phones are generally assigned country codes between 870 and 874, while Iridium phones use country codes 8816 and 8817.

Story

The world’s first satellite phone company began its services in 1979, under the name of the International Mobile Satellite Organization, an international non-profit organization started by the United Nations. The service was started to provide a reliable channel of communication with the maritime community. From the beginning, the organization was christened Inmarsat, which became a private company from 1999.

Warning

A notable problem with most satellite phones is that, unlike cell phones, their networks generally operate close to full capacity, even under normal circumstances. Networks generally do not have additional capacity to accommodate a greater number of calls simultaneously. This means that any increase in call volume, as has been the case during major regional and international shocks, can lead to the collapse of a satellite phone network. However, technological advances are being made so that satellite phone networks can eliminate these problems.