Inmarsat just cant help themselves

Have done, and so has the distributor that I use to buy credit. No response so far, but I assure you that I will update if I hear back from them. The distributor encouraged me to contact them also as he had no luck when he complained. He of course just ends up being the meat in the sandwich

April 17th

Hey shaker, I thought they changed the casual $10 plan to $20 in 2015. Just asking and not trying to be smart. I just got a $20 plan today for mine and was assured the $10 plan was obsolete unless you had kept it current.

I was told that as well, but I think that only applies in store, if you enquire online they will do a $10.00 plan, then ask for it to be enabled for international roaming & they post the SIM card to you. I deliberately made no reference to it being for a sat phone, I told them that I travel a lot & that I like to carry a spare phone for emergencies.

I copied these couple of replies...........the Telstra number to ring is there.

Bob

maurice b
isn't that 112 number?, instead of 000?
As much as I know, 112 emergency number can be called
without credit on Iridium sat phones as well.

Thats why you were asked to update your isatphone firmware to 5.11 in 2015 so you were able to call and connect to 000 .It is and was mandatory by our government that all aust connected satphones must be able to access 000 for free You can also call 112 ,works on my Isatphone with a message that its been transfered to 000.

Expiry was 2 years when I bought mine too! To be honest I got sick of them moving the goal posts & the frequent firmware upgrades were annoying.
Having the Motorola on the $10 plan is a lot simpler.

I was involved in early trials here in Oz for Magnavox portable Inmarsat terminals, when calls were $US12/minute. Their charter didn't cover land-based use, but they were exploring the potential. Back then there was no real alternative. But times have changed.

Regrettably, and no pun intended, terrestrial users of Inmarsat are a drop in the ocean. They make their money out of maritime users (and to a lesser extent aviation), for whom the usage cost is inconsequential.

Pre-paid minutes purchased "in case we need them" by travellers is not far short of a scam. Pre-paid portables on land is just a small albeit profitable sideline, so if they all abandoned Inmarsat I'm quite sure Inmarsat wouldn't shed a tear.

Am I missing something. If you would only use your sat phone in an emergency and you don't need credits for emergency calls where is the problem.

I think you are missing the fact that neither me, Shaker or Zippo said we didn't need to make normal calls and texts. Some people actually need to use their phone so that's the problem.

Well I'm sorry. The op stated he only had the phone for emergencies. Didn't use it but was happy to top up when expiry was 6 months but not 3. I was responding to that sentiment. I guess if you use your phone for other calls you wouldn't give a rats how long the expiry period was.

Terry, if you've ever used the 112/000 service, you are greeted with "which service do you require - Police, Fire, or Ambulance?" although I have also had "what is your life-threatening emergency?" (*)

What may constitute an "emergency" for me at least isn't necessarily limited to those. There are situations where calling any of those ESO's would be an abuse of the service. Maybe the term "extremely urgent non-life-threatening" situation better describes the type of use most of us cover with the purchase of a satphone. YMMV.

(*) I carried out all the 000 Y2K compliance testing for a WA ESO, which was an @r$e-covering exercise not taken lightly.

Give us a break Terry. Not sure how much remote travel you do, but not every emergency requires 000 or equivalent. Usual deal when crossing a remote area is to identify the contacts at each end, local services etc, and to be able to call them if required. I also use the phone at sea when in remote diving locations in South China Sea, Java Sea etc. Not much point calling 000 from there. I, like most others, do 'give a rats' about the cost.

I didn't expect that me selling my Isatphone Pro would have any effect on Inmarsat, however it made me feel better by getting rid of it.

Stephen, correct, as you say, and as I said in the original post, I only use it in emergencies.
I buy my credit from Timeplus in Melbourne. Recent email from Shahid stated
' Inmarsat has changed the validity periods from 1st April'17.'
Frankly, I couldn't care less what the date is. Rather than nitpicking over when it happened, I suspect the focus should be on the policy of change, but then you focus on whatever you wish.
If you really only want a signal in an emergency to call emergency services, just carry an EPIRB.
Cheers. Paul

Hi Stephen, as I understand it you need phone service to be able to activate a prepaid voucher so don't you have to activate your voucher before heading to a remote area if you want phone access other than 000?

Hi Paul

Totally agree that a PLB is the cheapest form of emergency equipment that should be carried by every vehicle that ventures out into the bush.

Cheers


Stephen

Hi Alby

Unfortunately you have been given very wrong and missleading information, sorry.

With Inmarsat, there is no time frame to have credit to keep your pre paid SIM active, unlike say Telstra which is only 6 months and you will lose your number.

As long as you have a valid voucher, which has a life of 12 months from the date of purchase, you can activate the voucher in the middle of Whop Whop even if you have not used your phone for years, and do not need " phone service " as you have just stated. Even with no phone credit, you can still turn your phone as many times as you like to test it....for free.

I hope this clears the matter up for you.



Cheers



Stephen

In the welter of changes to prepaid plans I seem to recall that Inmarsat announced that prepaid SIMs would now have a two year validity or maybe they would expire two years after the last credit expired. New SIM means a new number regrettably.