At work we had a truck based Sat phone 12 years ago called an M-Sat, it was expensive and like talking on a poor radio. We then got handheld 1st generation Iridiums, they worked but the GlobalStar units were much better. So about 6 years ago we bought GlobalStars, they worked well for about 4 years then really cr*pped out and I could not place a call for about a year! Last year we went back to Iridium handheld units and they have been working fine so far.

Mike