What's a satellite phone?

[charliebrown]

Anyone ever seen / used a satellite phone? The ones they're using to send voice and images from Afghanistan? Just curious.........

 

[wedi42]

i dont think any anandtechers own one the $7000

heres an article with a little info on them

another article

i just searched google for "videophone"
i also tried "videophone cnn"

 

[Tominator]

I've seen them for sale as 'surplus' for a little a $2000. They were supposed to take over global communications but as with most lofty ideas, went bust.

They had a uplink and downlink via satellite, but the sarellite time is very very expensive and from what I've heard the companies that support them are going out of business very fast and will not continue to support them. It seems it is the band width required for video that presents the biggest challenge.

They may have a place in the military though and have been used for several years, but the technology is already obsolete as other more efficient forms of global communication are just around the corner.

Got some of this from a Qualcomm Tech that services our data communication in our trucks that is linked via satellite.