Thuraya satphone service down

I have a Thuraya phone and account with Pivotel but it's currently not active, so got no notification.

Warren - watch out when you want to re-enable it. If the SIM card is too old you need to get a new one. No idea what "too old" is but last time I tried to re-enable it at the last minute I couldn't.

Thanks Peter, yes I had that issue last year but it was activated anyway. So now have a 'new' sim card. I think you can nominate a start date so next time I will do it a month in advance.

I received a notification from Pivotel on the 19th & again yesterday (24th).

Great, i have just bought and paid for a second hand phone, hopefully not a issue going forward,
cheers, Chester.

See Cuppa's post, more info on Monday 29th.

Hi,
It’s tough news for Pivotel and its many customers throughout Australia including me. I see that the expected lifetime of the satellite was estimated to be 12 years from its launch in 2008!

Thuraya news

If Thuraya 3 can't be recovered, Australia won't have any Thuraya service until a replacement satellite is launched.

I'm twice bitten, because I got stung by the Globalstar satellite failures in the mid 2000's. After that I was using an Iridium Motorola 9505a using my normal Telstra post paid plan with global roaming activated. Does that still work?
Cheers,
Chris

Yes not looking good Chris.

Sadly I sold the Iridium 9575 Sat phone, in perfect working order, which was included with our new vehicle just 4 days before the Thuraya satellite failed, because we had a working Thuraya Satsleeve Hotspot we were happy with!

Our intention was to maintain our Thuraya phone on Pivotel whilst we assessed the usefulness or otherwise of a Starlink system we are yet to purchase & install.

Looking like the decision to go with Starlink only may have been made for us if the Thuraya 3 Satellite remains unsalvageable.

I agree it's not looking good for any service resumption in the short to medium term. We only activate our Thuraya phone for 2-3 months a year, so the outlay and connection cost for the Iridium phone just doesn't stack up. If the Thuraya service fails, I'm thinking of a Garmin Inreach. We do a lot of our family communications by text anyway and could easily save the voice calls for mobile service areas. As far as on-the-go vehicle repairs, even for our 2011 Pajero, it really is only suspension and other running gear that is serviceable so having a mechanic on the end of a phone is probably not critical.

This from Facebook.
Not sure if it relates to the Thuraya satellite, but seems coincidental.

Yes, not happy, my phone turned up Monday, chucked it in the draw in disgust,
bought it for a trip this july/august, not looking too good for service then, cheers,
Chester.

Found this on the web. Link to story copied below.

Thuraya-3 satellite’s comms payload fails in orbit

by David Todd | Apr 23, 2024 | Reliability Info, Satellites, Seradata News

Middle Eastern satellite operator Yahsat’s subsidiary Thuraya has lost one of its satellite fleet – or rather it has lost is communications payload. The Thuraya 3 communications satellite, located over 98.5 degrees East in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) reportedly had a serious payload anomaly on 15 April 2024. The company has not released exact details of the anomaly but reports that communications services have been significantly diminished, albeit that the spacecraft itself remains under control.

Yahsat reports that engineers and both Thuraya and Boeing Satellite Systems, which built the satellite, are working on the fault. Thuraya also operates the Thuraya-2 spacecraft in GEO at 44 degrees East.
The satellite was launched in January 2008 and had already exceeded its 15 year design life. Seradata understands that the spacecraft is no longer insured (it was insured upto December 2023). A Thuraya-4-NGS spacecraft is under order from Airbus Defence and Space and will be launched in 2024.
Comment by David Todd: The fault might not be on the communications payload itself but might be on a separate subsystem which has a significant effect on the communications payload (e.g. Power).

I’m another with Thuraya. Didn’t use it last year, too busy moving interstate, was previously with Optus. We have Starlink at this house & my son has portable Starlink which he used to do his book work with when he was beekeeping. We’re going away this year July, August & Sept so may just rely on the Starlink if Thuraya is still down. I read an article a month or two back about a major solar flare from the sun which predicted may disrupt communications for several months, wonder if this has anything to do with it. Our Starlink is definitely poorer service at the moment & has been for a couple of weeks or so.

Chris, the days of using a Telstra mobile SIM in an Iridium satphone have sadly passed. They will happily sell you a SIM for their satellite service, but that's NOT a satisfactory solution for most of us. (Their satphone service SIM 0147... is still sitting in the card in front of me!)

Sold my 9555 last year, and was planning on borrowing my son's satphone for this year's travels. Unfortunately it's on Thuraya ...

From another forum

"Thuraya 4 will replace Thuraya 2 (Europe, Middle East, North Africa). Commissioning first half 2025.
Thuraya 5 not yet contracted for will replace Thuraya 3 (Asia, Australasia)."

I don't know how kosha that is, but things don't look promising.