Hi Riz,



I bought a Thuraya satphone from a place called UK based company
called MaviSat (www.mavisat.com).

I found it to be quite a useful thing because you can also use it as a
GPS tool to track your position which came in quite handy when I last
went camping. It cost about £600 quid (with the VAT) but I did abit of
research beforehand and other places were charging about £800 plus.
Call charges were not that expensive (about 50p to 60p per minute) and
are actually cheaper than GSM roaming in most cases but I reckon
that's because Thuraya is the cheapest network to be on. The only down
point with it is it does not have global coverage but the UK is in its
coverage footprint. If you do need more coverage I think they do the
other networks as well. Their website is pretty comprehensive so you
should be able to find out what you need from there.

steve

stevengale33@hotmail.com (Steven Gale) wrote in message news:<c1711f05.0307040253.7423864f@posting.google. com>...
> Hi Riz,
>
>
>
> I bought a Thuraya satphone from a place called UK based company
> called MaviSat (www.mavisat.com).
>
> I found it to be quite a useful thing because you can also use it as a
> GPS tool to track your position which came in quite handy when I last
> went camping. It cost about £600 quid (with the VAT) but I did abit of
> research beforehand and other places were charging about £800 plus.
> Call charges were not that expensive (about 50p to 60p per minute) and
> are actually cheaper than GSM roaming in most cases but I reckon
> that's because Thuraya is the cheapest network to be on. The only down
> point with it is it does not have global coverage but the UK is in its
> coverage footprint. If you do need more coverage I think they do the
> other networks as well. Their website is pretty comprehensive so you
> should be able to find out what you need from there.
>
> steve

I was also going to suggest Thuraya. The handsets are expensive. I
have only seen them in the gadget shops at the bottom of Tottenham
Court Rd. The last time I looked they wanted £800. You can usually
bargain quite a bit but I did not want to waste their time since I was
not serious enough to spend anywhere near that much. It is good to
hear that they can be found for £600. If they drop a bit further, I
may give in.

As you did, I found the PAYG rates quite good. They compared very
favourably to roaming rates on GSM phones. Of course, a local SIM
would usually beat it but they are not always easy to get and even
when they are, you may need to make a call before you are able to get
one.

I did not check the inbound call rates. Do you know? What does it
cost to call a Thuraya phone from BT? What, if anything, does the
Thuraya user pay for the incoming call?

Apart from the price, the main reason that I have not gone for Thuraya
yet is that the coverage does not go far enough East. I travel in the
Far East a lot and would only be interested if that region was
covered. I believe that Thuraya are considering expanding and
launching another satellite. If so, I may give in.

I know that other satellite companies do cover the Far East but their
rates seem much less attractive.

J