Smartphones are fantastic, but venture to a place that doesn't have cellular or Wi-Fi coverage and they turn into little more than a fancy glass slab for you to put your coffee cup down on.
Well, that is unless you have a satellite Wi-Fi hotspot.
In these situations you need the Iridium GO![1]
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The Iridium GO! looks like a regular portable hotspot device that you might use to create a Wi-Fi hotspot for your devices using the cellular network. But instead of connecting to land-based cell towers, the Iridium GO! connects to the constellation of Iridium communication satellites that orbit 500 miles above the Earth.
Your devices - up to five - then connect using Wi-Fi to the Iridium GO! (the deice created a hotspot some 100 foot/30 meters in radius) and allows you to do the following:
- Make voice calls
- Send a quick GPS or check-in message
- Configure your settings
- Send Twitter updates
- Activate emergency SOS
The Iridium GO! is built to MIL-STD 810F spec and is water- and dust-proof to IP65. It comes with a battery that's good for some 7 hours of usage and 16 hours of standby.
Sounds good, right? But there are some downsides.
First, it's not cheap. The device alone will set you back around $800, and then there's the data. An Iridium GO Unlimited Data and SMS gives you 150 minutes of talk time, and well as unlimited text and data for $149.99 a month.
Alternatively, you could opt for the Iridium GO Prepaid Service, which gives you either