The service offered by Telstra on satellite phones is absolutely excellent. Running costs are not expensive, with plans costing $28.00 a month, and calls costing 99 cents per 30 seconds. Family ringing you via a normal landline (home phone) costs them 60 cents per 30 seconds, so you NEVER need be out of contact ever again. So for just $1.00 a day you can have total peace of mind and have a stress free retirement with one less thing to worry about. The HUGE advantage of satellite over any other form of communication is you are ALWAYS INSTANTLY in contact no matter where you are located. If you have a medical emergency you can contact help instantly - we take ours bush walking with us ALWAYS. If you are free camping and get pestered by hoons or feel threatened in anyway, you can instantly call the police, as 000 works fine on satellite and you can do it quickly from inside the vehicle. Emergency services can even work out where you are within a 100 kms or so - clever stuff! Rather oddly the RV mags don't seem to cover satellite phones!

Insurance

A funny one this one! We normally insure all mobile equipment with NRMA on an All Risks policy. Now because we live in a city, a sat phone can only be insured with a house contents policy. We got around this by getting Ken Tame (CMCA Insurance) to add the phone to the motorhome policy - only $22.00. Now this is not as good as all risk, but at least it's covered most of the time. If anyone comes up with a better deal please share it with us!

Aerials

The external aerial supplied works best on a metal roof as it needs a ground plane. Now if you are in a fibreglass motorhome you can get around this by fitting a piece of aluminium foil/sheet on the roof or buying the dearer tower aerial (needs no ground plane at all). Members of the CMCA HF club could help you with this, as many are "ground plane" experts. In our experience satellite phone accessories appear to be very expensive. With have used ONLY the bits supplied with the phone.

Other Purchasing Alternatives

In our view these are a safe item to buy overseas as the same models are used all over the world, as it is a true global network (Iridium). Phones used in the USA automatically seek the cheapest service as the 9500 also picks up all other services, BUT Telstra for reasons unknown have not activated this feature in Australia (Vodaphone via the Globalstar network have though?) So as far as we can see from talking to Telstra it doesn't matter where you source your phone from it should work in Australia - it could pay to do your own research though as things do change. Ebay in both Australia and the USA is a good source, and even NZ Telecom is worth looking at if you want to save a big chunk of money. We came across several "refurbished" phones in the USA. Think this is another way of saying rejects fixed at the factory? After getting a phone all you do is rock up to Telstra and sign up for a plan. Unlike normal mobiles you even get to pick your own number. A good move is to use part of your home number. They insert a Sim card (no charge - it looks like a credit card) and away you go - takes under 10 minutes!