Got an email saying that my Northern Lights plan will go from 6 months and $279 to $340. May be time to ditch it. InReach works well.

Inreach for me.

I dropped mine for inreach

I dropped mine a couple of years ago. It seems to be the only "new" technology that is actually regressing. I sure wouldn't buy a new sat phone now.
Cell phones are already starting to connect to satellites in some instances. It won't be long before all cell phones will connect that way.

Been keeping sat phone mostly for on the boat and those times it’s required to call ADFG 6 or 8 hours before landing some groundfish species. But also long stretches at camp it’s nice to hear the wife’s voice sometimes. And if the InReach goes out for some reason it’s good backup.

I use the inreach also

T-Mobile has been talking to Musk about using Star Link in the T-Mobile system

I keep hoping they will merge the type of service available with InReach into mobile plans from wireless providers. Apple has emergency service through satellite on their iPhone14 already.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213426

I'll bet that within a fairly short period of time both InReach and sat phones will be obsolete. A cell phone will be all you need. However, I will still always carry my 406 MHz PLB when on a boat or in remote locations.

I'm using starlink right now at our trapping cabin, we have the RV service so you can take it wherever you go. We can also use our cell phone around the cabin but not on the line so we still have a sat.

Space age trapping!

@victor#0, what is the monthly rate on the Starlink plan?

$135 for the RV service, we can take it wherever we go. The home service if it's going to be in one place is$110. It's super fast so you can watch movies etc.

McDang now!

We're lucky my wife's job paid for the StarLink as well as the service so she can work from the Bush while I go trapping and fishing. Can't complain about that!

Lucky fellow!

Would be interested in what company you’re with? I just got notice of renewal from satellite phone store mine is going from $279 plus surcharges and fee’s making it $312.48 to 436.80 including surcharges and fees.

There really is no competition in the iridium system the last time I checked. Quite a few different plans but they all pencil-out the same.

Range Global $275
range global northern lights plan

We've had Starlink for over a month now. What a difference from our horrible HughesNet service !!
We dumped HughesNet.
BTW ... if anyone is concerned about Starlink working in the cold, not a single hiccup during our last
cold spell that lasted 10 days with a low of -64.

Iridium Northern Lights Plan thru Surveyors Exchange

Thanks, will call them in the morning.

That’s great news for your family! Starlink sure is changing things for a lot of people. Hope it stays affordable and functioning good.

dump the sat phone a couple years ago and went with the inreach

With the jumos in things like starlink im wondering how much longer ill be using my inreach. might just switch to starlink for communication and go back to something like spot for emergancy situations as its cheaper.

Most sat phones and gps systems, also home security systems, cctv, etc used to used 3G cards to transmit and receive. As of the first of the year all MOd/UMtS equipment (which is 3g) was shut down except in areas with high hacidic Jews as they only use 3g phones or are supposed to not have access to the internet.

All but 16 Verizon sites have been turned down, and they are in New York. So basically any and all systems that used 3g now have to be switched over to 4g. This caused a lot of people to redo their security systems over the past few months.

These have gotten pretty popular in the fishing fleet, since they are cheaper than the Garmin/Delorme inreach, both to purchase, and the monthly fee is usually at least $15 per month lower. Everyone I know that has used both, report the Zoleo works consistently better, both acquiring a signal more reliably, and also not having the problem of messages getting temporarily "stuck" in cyberspace.

https://www.zoleo.com/en-us