We take it for granted that we almost always have cell service, no matter where you go around town. But there are places — the desert, the forest, or the ocean — where you might not have cell service. In addition, there are certain jobs where you must be able to make a call even if the cell towers are down, for example, after a hurricane. Recently, a combination of technological advancements has made it possible for your ordinary cell phone to connect to a satellite for at least some kind of service. But before that, you needed a satellite phone.
On TV and in movies, these are simple. You pull out your cell phone that has a bulkier-than-usual antenna, and you make a call. But the real-life version is quite different. While some satellite phones were connected to something like a ship, I’m going to consider a satellite phone, for the purpose of this post, to be a handheld device that can make calls.
History
Satellites have been relaying phone calls for a very long time. Early satellites carried voice transmissions in the late 1950s. But it would be 1979 before Inmarsat would provide MARISAT for phone calls from sea. It was clear that the cost of operating a truly global satellite phone system would be too high for any single country, but it would be a boon for ships at sea.
Inmarsat, started as a UN organization to create a satellite network for naval operations. It would grow to operate 15 satellites and become a private British-based company in 1998. However, by the late 1990s, there were competing companies like Thuraya, Iridium, and GlobalStar.
For example, here was part of a press release for a 1989 satellite terminal:
…small enough to fit into a standard suitcase. The TCS-9200 satellite terminal weighs 70lb and can be used to send voice, facsimile and still photographs… The TCS-9200 starts at $53,000, while Inmarsat charges are $7 to $10 per minute.
Keep in mind, too, that in addition to the briefcase, you needed an antenna. If you were lucky, your antenna folded up and, when deployed, looked a lot like an upside-down umbrella.
However, Iridium launched specifically to bring a handheld satellite phone service to the market. The first call? In late 1998, U.S. Vice President Al Gore dialed Gilbert Grosvenor, the great-grandson of Alexander Graham Bell. The phones looked like very big “brick” phones with a very large antenna that swung out.
Of course, all of this was during the Cold War, so the USSR also had its own satellite systems: Volna and Morya, in addition to military satellites.
Location, Location, Location
The earliest satellites made one orbit of the Earth each day, which means they orbit at a very specific height. Higher orbits would cause the Earth to appear to move under the satellite, while lower orbits would have the satellite racing around the Earth.
That means that, from the ground, it looks like they never move. This gives reasonable coverage as long as you can “see” the satellite in the sky. However, it means you need better transmitters, receivers, and antennas.
This is how Inmarsat and Thuraya worked. Unless there is some special arrangement, a geosynchronous satellite only covers about 40% of the Earth.
Getting a satellite into a high orbit is challenging, and there are only so many “slots” at the exact orbit required to be geosynchronous available. That’s why other companies like Iridium and Globalstar wanted an alternative.
That alternative is to have satellites in lower orbits. It is easier to talk to them, and you can blanket the Earth. However, for full coverage of the globe, you need at least 40 or 50 satellites.
The system is also more complex. Each satellite is only overhead for a few minutes, so you have to switch between orbiting “cell towers” all the time. If there are enough satellites, it can be an advantage because you might get blocked from one satellite by, say, a mountain, and just pick up a different one instead.
Globalstar used 48 satellites, but couldn’t cover the poles. They eventually switched to a constellation of 24 satellites. Iridium, on the other hand, operates 66 satellites and claims to cover the entire globe. The satellites can beam signals to the Earth or each other.
The Problems
There are a variety of issues with most, if not all, satellite phones. First, geosynchronous satellites won’t work if you are too far North or South since the satellite will be so low, you’ll bump into things like trees and mountains. Of course, they don’t work if you are on the wrong side of the world, either, unless there is a network of them.
Getting a signal indoors is tricky. Sometimes, it is tricky outdoors, too. And this isn’t cheap. Prices vary, but soon after the release, phones started at around $1,300, and then you paid $7 a minute to talk. The geosynchronous satellites, in particular, are subject to getting blocked momentarily by just about anything. The same can happen if you have too few satellites in the sky above you.
Modern pricing is a bit harder to figure out because of all the different plans. However, expect to pay between $50 and $150 a month, plus per-minute charges ranging from $0.25 to $1.50 per minute. In general, networks with less coverage are cheaper than those that work everywhere. Text messages are extra. So, of course, is data.
If you want to see what it really looked like to use a 1990-era Iridium phone, check out [saveitforparts] video below.
If you prefer to see an older non-phone system, check him out with an even older Inmarsat station in this video:
So it is no wonder these never caught on with the mass market. We expect that if providers can link normal cell phones to a satellite network, these older systems will fall by the wayside, at least for voice communications. Or, maybe hacker use will get cheaper. We can hope, right?
Pretty sure a lot of new phones are getting satellite-based texting now.
not just new. existing phones. iphone 14 and later. also Android phones. it’s wild how fast this came to be. it’s almost impossible to get lost now
If you bothered to read you would see that is mentioned…..
No mentioning of SpaceX+vodafone+3GPP deal
IMHO, better speed up, China is ALREADY testing 6G (satellite-based comms) and have we had proper planning, we’d be experimenting with 7G (quantum entanglement networks – no need for the satellites per se). Sadly, US is not in the position to speed up R&D that’s needed.
As far as retiring older phone satellites go – they came at the wrong time (at the end of the first Cold War) and it was about to happen anyway. I am actually surprised Iridium was even kept afloat that long, already outdated when it was launched, and in all fairness, it looked more like “reusing surplus/declassified military stuffs” than real for-profit thing. Pricing was not exactly affordable back then, and it is still too expensive to be of use to the average Sam’s needs.
Regardless, as mentioned, 7G looks more promising, lest unexpected technological hurdle presents itself. That nobody will be able to spy on anyone else if 7G becomes affordable/doable is not something anyone can control, and the bad guys will be using it just the same, ahead of anyone else, so I see no reasons why this cannot happen sooner than later.
The ‘g’ designations are arbitrary indications of cellular tech generations created as marketing fodder by telecoms, pretty much unrelated to the actual technologies used.
Idk where you get the idea that satellites are “6g” or entangled comms are “7g”
I’m still waiting for 9G as promised by Grand Theft Auto 5 :D
The Iridium constellation was saved by DoD among others because while it got cost ineffective for phone service, there are some things it did better than anything else and even if they were obsolete a lot of money and engineering had gone into creating the constellation. For awhile they were the go-to solution for must be worldwide small packet data links to remote equipment, and for sufficiently remote and inaccessible devices even cost effective. I remember reading that an Arduino shield was available and costs for 1K data packets were in the dime to quarter range. Which sounds outrageous in an era where we think nothing of downloading gigabyte movies, but would have seemed miraculous in the 1990’s.
Satellite comms are more expensive, worse throughput and harder to implement.
As the article states they were really only useful at sea or the poles
Quantum entanglement and quantum communications are two entirely different things.
Quantum entanglement relates to paired atoms or photons that always share the same quantum state. Quantum communications relates to a communication medium that uses the minimum energy such that if the communication channel is tapped or monitored, it is no longer viable (to either the user or the interceptor).
Well seeing as iridium phones are L-band, I wonder are they good parts sources to make 23cm amateur radio gear?
Why bother? Isn’t 23cm ham band being considered almost dead, anyway? 😟
As far as I heard, the last new 23cm capable ansceivers were sold over 25 years ago.
So hams interested in it need either SDRs or vintage radios, I guess.
I have no idea if its dead or not, but I’m interested in it, and interested in using it cheaply
Does Intelsat fit anywhere into this story?
Intelsat, as far as I know, doesn’t directly offer phone service although it can offer backhaul services to network carriers. You might be thinking of Inmarsat?
Instead of a sat phone, you can get a star-link mini with roaming service for $50 a month and do TCP/IP calling with your regular phone.
Not keen on an ISP where my service can be randomly turned off if a billionaire decides they don’t like me, or want me blind when someone attacks me. I’ll stick to services operated by functioning adults instead of folks who have whole divisions dedicated to distracting them so they don’t meddle with actual engineers.
“Not keen on an ISP where my service can be randomly turned off if a billionaire decides they don’t like me RoCkEt MaN bAd ReEeEe.”
Grow up. You’re not nearly interesting enough for a billionaire to ever pretend to care about. Also if you think Musk is uniquely a billionaire douche majeure, you’re ignorance is really spilling over.
*your
I recently used the satellite SMS feature on an iPhone while in the mountains without service for a few days. I didn’t know it was an option. It just popped up asking if I wanted to connect to a satellite. It had a handy alignment feature showing the relative direction of the satellite I needed to point at. It just worked. I was amazed at how easy it was to use. It handled the handoff to another satellite well showing the next one coming over requiring me to turn towards it. I need to research what satellites they are using for this.
The only other options will require you to sell a kidney to afford them and they will provide significantly worse service.
Has the added benefit of being insanely cheaper compared to the type of satellite phone being talked about above. Has the huge disadvantage of not working in most regions of the globe, mostly defeating the point of a sat phone. Maybe someday
Let’s not overlook the importance of basic voice communication.
I know of at least one government agency (not FEMA) that wants satellite-based voice service for one primary reason – to at least have a chance at maintaining it’s mission in the event of the next event that overwhelms legacy PSTN and IP-based communications.
This agency had important work to do when 9/11 happened, and for 3 days, struggled to do most of it.
The availability of the called persons is of course subject to the same risks as a 9/11 type event, depending on what technology they use. But an Iridium-to-Iridium call (for example) should in theory have a greater possibility of success.
’round about y2k we had a sat phone (an Iridium, I think) that had a 9600 bps serial connection you could plug directly into your computer for data transport. $3/minute for satellite email.
But that’s not so bad: 15 years earlier it was $3/minute for 300 bps VHF radiotelephone data. In 1985 we thought it was pretty neat to be doing wireless email forty miles from the nearest paved road.
Iridium, on the other hand, operates 66 satellites
Funny thing: Iridium was supposed to have 77 satellites, like it says on the tin — the atomic number of Iridium is 77. They didn’t change the name when they downsized to constellation to 66 though, because “Dysprosium” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
That is actually hilarious.
But yeah, Iridium was getting obsolete just about as it was becoming complete.
Not my quip: Credit goes to insider David Bell, who related that to me sometime late in the last century. Thanks David, wherever you are.
We could have had this with Orbital Antenna Farms. Even larger than Bluewalker, big antenna farms mean smaller consumer devices without megaconstellations ruining the sky.
As someone who regularly uses Irridium for work communication, I sure hope the rollout to smartphones has less failed calls.
I suspect the average consumer will have much less tolerance than I will.