Inmarsat iSatphone

Share your advice and personal experiences, post a gear review or ask any questions you may have pertaining to outdoor gear and equipment.
User avatar
isatphonelive
Topix Newbie
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:31 am
Experience: N/A

Re: Inmarsat iSatphone

Post by isatphonelive »

Hi Fish,

Our customer service team advise that the data service supports email. You may be able to send photos via the phone if compressed in an email attachment. To access the data service you will need the latest firmware upgrade (already installed on new IsatPhone Pro's) and software that your service provider will be able to advise of.

Our BGAN service, which is our broadband data service, handles large-file transfer, internet browsing and secure VPN access, as well as offer a portfolio of streaming rates. The service is more suited to handle a lot more data throughput, but naturally, if you are just wanting primarily a satphone for your remote voice communications, IsatPhone Pro would be for you.

I hope this satisfies your questions but if there is anything else we can help with please let us know or speak to one of our US-based accredited service providers.

Thanks again Fish.
User avatar
fishmonger
Topix Fanatic
Posts: 1250
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2008 10:27 am
Experience: Level 4 Explorer
Location: Madison, WI
Contact:

Re: Inmarsat iSatphone

Post by fishmonger »

isatphonelive wrote:Hi Fish,

Our customer service team advise that the data service supports email. You may be able to send photos via the phone if compressed in an email attachment. To access the data service you will need the latest firmware upgrade (already installed on new IsatPhone Pro's) and software that your service provider will be able to advise of.

Thanks again Fish.
thanks for the info.

I just read all the data transfer info in the user guide, and it appears what that goes into getting the data into the phone is a huge problem for backcountry users who carry their own gear: it turns out the phone just acts as a modem, and you need to bring a PC along. Too bad, because where I want to take it you just don't carry a laptop or even a netbook along. Bummer, since if it could actually email from the handset, even to just a preset address like the Spot, and read in data from a card slot, it would be much more attractive.

And then there's that monthly service plan you're forced to buy in the US - what's up with that? Users like me will maybe power up their sat phone two or three times during a trip, but for 11 months straight it'll sit on the shelf and will be of no use whatsoever. A 120 minute prepaid card with 2 year expiration would last me for 2 years easily. Can't do that int he US - and it is costing you customers. I am probably the first one.

Why can I buy prepaid air time for Europe, but not for use in the US? This is one major problem when it comes to reaching occasional use adventure types with this product. Iriduim loses on the same front due to their silly short term prepaid card expiration times. If their cards didn't essentially self destroy after a month or two without me adding money over and over again, I would have bought their phone a year ago. Their loss. It is almost like they don't want subscribers who need the phone twice a year for 3 weeks as a standby emergency tool but don't want to pay endless fees to keep the expensive minutes they bought in the first place.

At least the monthly fee for the iSatphone is no more than 75 prepaid minutes on the Iridium, but then I still have to pay for minutes. For me, that's the biggest reason to be hesitant and not buy one. Maybe next year will really bring devices that are much more useful for our types of use.
User avatar
maverick
Forums Moderator
Forums Moderator
Posts: 11821
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2006 5:54 pm
Experience: Level 4 Explorer

Re: Inmarsat iSatphone

Post by maverick »

Fish wrote "Users like me will maybe power up their sat phone two or three times
during a trip, but for 11 months straight it'll sit on the shelf and will be of no use
whatsoever."

This was another reason for dropping Globalstar, besides the billing issues, and
the sorry customer service.
There should be a plan for folks like us who only would use it a few months out of the
year, and then be able to go into a stand-by mode for the rest time, but have an
option to use it in case of an emergency, or some sort of natural disaster, instead of
having to pay a reactivation fee each year at the beginning of the season.
Professional Sierra Landscape Photographer

I don't give out specific route information, my belief is that it takes away from the whole adventure spirit of a trip, if you need every inch planned out, you'll have to get that from someone else.

Have a safer backcountry experience by using the HST ReConn Form 2.0, named after Larry Conn, a HST member: http://reconn.org
User avatar
tim
Topix Expert
Posts: 516
Joined: Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:36 pm
Experience: N/A
Location: Bay Area

Re: Inmarsat iSatphone

Post by tim »

fishmonger wrote:It is almost like they don't want subscribers who need the phone twice a year for 3 weeks as a standby emergency tool but don't want to pay endless fees to keep the expensive minutes they bought in the first place ... Maybe next year will really bring devices that are much more useful for our types of use.
That's exactly the issue, no satellite phone provider (or distributor) particularly wants subscribers who just use it occasionally and won't pay for the privilege. There's plenty of people (companies, disaster response, etc.) who will pay $40 to $60 per month for that emergency capability (in fact about half of the paying satphone customers out there never make a call), and you'd be giving away all that revenue if you offered it at a way lower price. In fact, Inmarsat's prepaid pricing (outside the US) accomplishes precisely that, and may be just too low to build a substantial revenue base (Inmarsat would love to drive Iridium out of business, and have plenty of revenue from other services, so its not an altruistic approach). Inmarsat's issue with no prepaid in the US relates to a patent dispute over their billing platform - maybe it will get solved, maybe not.

Sorry, but we're just not that important. Think about it from a dealer's point of view. They maybe make $100-$150 on a $500-$600 satphone and then $60 on a $120 prepaid card, and then never see the customer for two years, at which point they have probably forgotten about you. When you sell a couple of dozen satphones a month (maybe 100 for the biggest distributors) it really isn't a great business, compared to cellphones where you can sell a couple of dozen phones (and make $300 per customer) every day.

You have to look to products targeted at the consumer market for consumer-oriented pricing. That's going to mean SPOT and future two-way messaging devices, which have enough volume (and margin on the equipment) to end up in REI, etc. It probably won't mean satphones any time soon.
User avatar
fishmonger
Topix Fanatic
Posts: 1250
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2008 10:27 am
Experience: Level 4 Explorer
Location: Madison, WI
Contact:

Re: Inmarsat iSatphone

Post by fishmonger »

there's a threshold where I'd always buy a sat phone over any other device, and that's maybe at $300 for the device and $10 a month or less. That is more than the Spot, but low enough that they could sell thousands each year to types like us. Now, the network load would not be high, so I can't see why they would not want to get into that volume market? It's not like Inmarsat is selling cell phones. Their only real appeal is that their stuff works where cell phones don't, so they always will have to aim at that niche user group who cares about that capability.

I think to increase their user sat phone user base, they really only have two options - outperform the other platform technically, so those who are paying $50 a month or more per phone will switch for that extra whatever feature or reception quality they get, or they go for the unwashed masses and make it cheap enough to get 6 of those for $10/month and grow the user base that way.

There may be some fears that we will eventually overload their system with our calls from Lyell Canyon to grandma, but that's where the minute pricing will always put a cap on it, I think. Do they have limited phone numbers to give out?

I think they just don't have the distribution channels to really go for the masses, and the risk that it will flop when they do put one of these things into an REI may be too high for the investors. On the other hand, I guess they are just used to dealing with corporate clients and don't have a real game plan to push into the unknown consumer market. Just look at the Terrestar thing - they never even tried to sell that to individuals, even though they had ATT on board. Perhaps they already know it was a dud, who knows.

But what do I know. I'm just a consumer looking at paying another year of Spot ($99/year), or dropping $600 on a phone, $180 a year on a subscription, plus $1.25 a minute? :-({|=

I really need to buy a mounain bike for my daughter right now, and the more I look at this, I think I can wait another year and see what happens. If they can do a prepaid plan in the US, I may go for it. When I go on my winter JMT (April 2013 probably) I will need one of these things, though, but a lot can happen in those 20 months.
User avatar
tim
Topix Expert
Posts: 516
Joined: Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:36 pm
Experience: N/A
Location: Bay Area

Re: Inmarsat iSatphone

Post by tim »

The problem is these phones cost ~$400 each to make (Terrestar was even more, probably closer to $1000), before you've recovered any of the millions of dollars invested in developing it (not to mention the billions of dollars spent to build the satellites - Iridium is just investing $3B to replace its constellation).

It's impossible to sell it to you for <$300 and $10 per month even if you could sell thousands (and in fact there are nearly 200,000 users in North America who've been prepared to pay what it costs at the moment).
User avatar
fishmonger
Topix Fanatic
Posts: 1250
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2008 10:27 am
Experience: Level 4 Explorer
Location: Madison, WI
Contact:

Re: Inmarsat iSatphone

Post by fishmonger »

interesting stuff - looks like they heard my whining and now there's a "short term" contract plan available

http://www.globalcomsatphone.com/isatphone_service.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

$20 a month for 3 months, plus $1.50 per minute. I can live with that, since most years I only will use it once for a 4-5 week window, and the calls will be limited to emergency and the occasional quick check in. Cheaper than my anual Spot plan if you don't chat it up. so now I just have to get over the price of the phone...

another vendor seems to offer monthly plans at even lower price, but contradicts that in the small print where each plan requires an annual commitment. Gotta call them ($15 per month on a monthly basis, $0.89 per min, free activation).

update - this second vendor requires a 12 month signup. So the $20/mo 3-month deal is the only short term available in the US until some sort of Patent claim is resolved that will allow them to sell prepaid cards. In Canada, you can buy the phone with 200 minutes good for 2 years for $799 - now that would be my package. Anyone know who and what this American Wireless Prepaid company is and why Iridium can sell prepaid cards and Inmarsat can't?
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 31 guests