If you haven’t checked out satellite phones in the last few years, you SHOULD. “If you call another compatible satellite phone the call is transmitted up to the satellites and then down to the ground station then transmitted back up to the satellites then down to receiving satellite phone. This is the ultimate secure calling because the encryption is handled at the ground station because the call never goes to a land-line or PSTN.” In other words, satellite phone to satellite phone calls still provides privacy.
In case you’re wondering what a PSTN is, that stands for Public Switched Telephone Network. This network is where governments actually tap in to listen to you and your friends. Way back when, you could almost always tell when someone was tapped in if you were paying attention. The technology has improved so you’ll rarely hear the noises and bleed from a tap that were once common. While this method and the governments are the most likely to invade your privacy by listening in, there are others who will do so as well.
Hey, I like my privacy! Not only that, I am more than a little PISSED that Senators Schumer and Cornyn are proposing to spend more of OUR MONEY to pass a law permitting more invasion of our privacy AND which will cost us money (as every new law does) at a time when our economy is in the crapper. Their actions are just beyond objectionable. They claim this is for counterterrorism but the experts say that’s crap and I’d have to agree it’s clearly CRAP. Like the terrorists can’t find out about the privacy of sat to sat calls in 5 minutes on the internet as I did? Like the terrorists haven’t long since switched over to this more secure technology? Of course they have. Clearly the only reason for this law is to BUTT in and listen to OUR calls whenever the government wants and to be able to do so with ease because they’ve created a database from the IDs presented at the time phones are purchased. That’s where Schumer and Cornyn are headed with their new law.
So, I’m shopping for a satellite phone and I may not even be willing to talk to anyone by phone unless they’ve got a satellite phone too. I sure like what I’m seeing in the sat phone market!
- Currently, the best service available at Globalcom is offered by Iridium. Iridium phones offer true worldwide coverage including the open seas. With the Iridium service it is possible to purchase pre-paid minutes with no contract, no credit check and no monthly fees.
- Globalstar satellite phones offer the least expensive airtime service plans as well as the least expensive hand held satellite phones. Globalstar offers the latest communications technology giving you the best call clarity only offered with Globalstar phones.
“Globalstar has 48 satellites and Iridium has 66 that orbit the earth.” The coverage is great and can even be improved for activities like spelunking. The rates aren’t bad! I’m not one who chats on the phone a lot and these rates are getting darn close to cell phone rates. Makes sense too. Although satellites are expensive, so is maintaining a growing ground based network of towers. I’d guess it won’t be long before the sat phone rates are even lower than cell phone rates. Now the sat phones themselves are a bit pricey but I’ve seen some pricey cell phones too. Besides, sat phones are designed to take more abuse so it seems worth it to me to pay a bit more for a better product since I’m not inclined to losing my cell phones as many are.
I guess I should mention here that you can also rent sat phones. You can surf the net on sat phones. And, yes, indeed, you can get a prepaid sat phone! Basically, you can get the same goodies and options as in most cell phones with better coverage and more durable products. :)
The ability to block cell phones is now common but blocking sat phones is not so easy. I rather like the concept that others (whether it’s the government or the local movie theatre) can’t just cut off services I’m paying for.
I’m certainly not trying to do an advertisement for Globalcom but they sure do have a nice and informative website, including a page of links to oodles of history and information. Here’s a few others to check out too:
Ah, heck, just google inmarsat sat phone. You’ll get a few thousand providers. It seems a LOT of people like this option and I’m quite sure privacy is one of the reasons. Sure goes to show that Schumer and Cornyn are either complete idiots to think their new law will have an impact on terrorism OR they are just BS’ing in hopes of a few years for the government to play peeper and listen in on calls, collect IDs, do some mote profiling…