Smartphones are essential to modern life, but they are not the first cell phones on the market. Satellite phones (i.e. phones that send calls by communicating with satellites in low Earth orbit) beat the first cell phones. However, satellite phones have all but disappeared, and it’s not just because you can use apps like Apple TV and Nintendo Music on Android phones.
On paper, satellite phones seem more efficient. Normal smartphones route communications through entire networks of cables and cell towers, while satellite phones only need to send conversations back to satellites. However, even though satellite phones effectively eliminate the middleman, any call going through them is likely to be delayed since even the nearest satellites they use are thousands of miles away. Additionally, each call is expensive. Sure, $50 for an unlimited phone plan seems like a lot, but that’s $50 for all your phone calls, messaging, and web browsing for an entire month. For comparison, a call on a satellite phone costs an average of $2 per minute, which is too expensive for most users.
The disadvantages don’t stop there. While smartphones have become so small and thin that you can slip them into your pocket, satellite phones have to be large and bulky. Otherwise, their antennas (yes, they still use antennas) would be too weak to communicate with satellites. And the icing on the cake? Satellite phones are actually illegal in some places. You can use a smartphone to call people while on vacation, for example in Cuba, but satellite phones are banned there. Nonetheless, you should still use eSim cards when traveling abroad, but that’s a story for another article.
Satellite phones still occupy a niche
While cell phones primarily use cell towers to send data, messages, and calls, modern smartphones can also connect to satellites in an emergency. You would think that this technology would make satellite phones obsolete, but some holdouts still rely on satellite phones.
Since satellite phones do not rely on (and are not limited by) cell towers, they are perfect for people who need to stay in touch when visiting places with limited or unreliable communications infrastructure. People who work in remote locations and emergency response teams rely on satellite phones, as the former tend to visit areas without cell towers, while the latter cannot rely on operational local cell towers, especially after disasters. Plus, astronauts use satellite phones…in a sense. They don’t use the same devices that you and I would use if we needed a satellite phone, but the technology is more or less the same.
Of course, many companies sell satellite phones to people who just want to stay in touch while camping in the woods, on a boat trip, or anywhere else where cell service is unreliable. Companies such as Iridium Satellite Communication and Garmin sell satellite phones, but they aren’t cheap, so if you only need them for a weekend, you may want to consider renting the device instead.
