[hcurtiss]

My wife and I and our two kids do a fair amount of back-country white water rafting. After arriving at a very remote take-out with no car and no cell service after a five day float (and running low on food and water), we went ahead and bought an actual satellite phone. It’s a game changer. Cost about $400 used and we have it refreshing quarterly on BlueCosmo for $99. It’s awesome, and cheap insurance relative to the risk.

[pnpnp]

$99 quarterly sounds like a good deal - was this with Iridium? That's unfortunately the only network that works well for my use-case.

I currently pay for an inReach Messenger, and use it on a weekly basis. The $12/mo base cost is peanuts for what it actually provides me.

[hcurtiss]

No, it's Inmarsat (IsatPhone 2).

[pnpnp]

Ah, that’s too bad. I think (please correct if I’m wrong) those have some trouble in canyons at higher latitudes. The nice thing about Iridium is if you wait a few minutes, a bird will usually show up overhead. It’s nice for SAR missions we help with in the mountains.

[hcurtiss]

I suspect you're right about the advantages of Iridium. All I can say is that we live in Oregon and I've been able to get out of canyons pretty well. I've used it on the John Day, Deschutes and Grande Ronde, mostly to coordinate with shuttles or check in back home. I cannot speak to other geographies. The profound advantages of two-way instant communication in an emergency would justify hiking uphill a ways too. I'm rarely surrounded by sheer cliffs. But I'm sure there are circumstances where Iridium -- or Starlink! -- would work better. We bought a v2 standard Starlink setup for tailgating and camping and it's truly awesome. That technology in phones is a game changer. In truth, my wife and I have iPhone 14 Pro and 15 Pro, respectively. If the Inmarsat sat phone doesn't work, you can be sure we'd hit the button on the iPhones, which makes for a nice backup as I believe they use the Globalstar LEO satellites.

[pnpnp]

We are much in the same boat :) Satellite has been a game changer for us as outdoor-oriented people.