wonder what the reliability is? if you an iridium satellite goes offline, there are plenty others to come around. If you lose one of the three geostationarys with Imarstat, is there enough overlap coverage zone to switch to one of the other remaining two?
well, a few hundred thousand ships on this planet rely on Inmarsat's setup (although I don't know about the satellite type they are using). They are market leaders with trucking companies, too. The ads state service life of the current setup is well into the 2020s, but you're right - what if the one sat over the US part of the planet drops? I guess that's the risk.
I still haven't bought the phone, but may do so before my October JMT, especially if I should end up going solo. Don't really want to try a sat phone the first time when I absolutely have to rely on it.
So far I could only find that one vendor offering a 3-month contract, but then that's cheaper than my kid's cell phones. I pretty much have now run out of excuses to not buy a sat phone. That $15 per month plan required a 12 month minimum commitment, so no deal.
