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.

An IsatPhone-Pro (CC-BY-SA-3.0 by [Klaus Därr])The first commercial satellite phone call was in 1976. The oil platform “Deep Sea Explorer” had a call with Phillips Petroleum in Oklahoma from the coast of Madagascar. Keep in mind that these early systems were not what we think of as mobile phones. They were more like portable ground stations, often with large antennas.

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.
Iridium satellites are always on the move, but blanket the earth.
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.

youtube.com/embed/omerPV8CPZQ?…

If you prefer to see an older non-phone system, check him out with an even older Inmarsat station in this video:

youtube.com/embed/mOvUxoA7Ngs?…

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?

hackaday.com/2025/06/23/eulogy…