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The Motorola 9505a allows you to connect to the Iridium satellite phone network. While expensive compared to cell phones, only Iridium can be claimed to work EVERYWHERE on Earth. If your work or leisure takes you truly off the beaten track, and Iridium satellite service in combination with this phone will literally be your only communication link to the world. Therefore, Iridium's Motorola 9505a has been designed to operate in the most extreme of conditions. This phone is not built like the modern cell phones of today. It is built to be rugged, strong, and dependable. It is heavy and expensive and simple, but this is all by intention given the audience of buyers who are typically looking for reliability above all else when turning to satellite phone solutions such as Iridium.
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Summary
Rent or buy an Iridium Satellite phone to ensure reliable voice communications anywhere in the world, especially in places where cellular options are inconsistent or not available at all.
Video of the Motorola 9505a Iridium Satellite Phone
The benefits of renting or buying your Iridium satellite phone through rangeRoamer include:
- Pick your own US phone number: Normally Iridium comes with a phone number that starts with 8816, and this international prefix is VERY expensive to call from most places. Often times it is so expensive that it is blocked by your long distance carrier. Rates of $4 to $10 per minute are normal to 8816 numbers! rangeRoamer gets around this problem by assigning your satellite phone a US number.
- No contract
- Pick the minutes bundle of your choice
- Clear, transparent billing. Receive printable invoice including all of your call records
- No scratchcards. Normally with Iridium you have to buy small scratch cards to add more minutes. Our advanced system automatically takes care of these things for you. Just give us a credit card number and we can replenish your phone for you based on the rules YOU set.
Or Rent it click here to price it
If your trip is under 3 weeks, this can
save you money. Otherwise, just buy it
Ratings
This is a very basic phone. Operation is intuitive. There are no special aiming requirements. You just turn it on, wait for it to connect to the satellites, and then use it. If you can use a basic cell phone, you can use an Iridium 9505a with just about zero training.
Pole to pole, anywhere on earth. Coverage with Iridium cannot be beaten. However, there is NO COVERAGE INDOORS DUE TO SATELLITE SYSTEM LIMITATIONS. The only way around this is to attach a small separate antenna which connects via cable to the satellite phone being used indoors. The Iridium satellite network is a constellation of 66 satellites in orbit around Earth. Instead of using cell phone towers, a satellite phone such as the Motorola 9555 automatically connects to this satellite constellation by making a direct radio link directly to the satellites above. This means you can get phone service anywhere on Earth. Once you turn on the Motorola 9555 it basically acts exactly like a normal cell phone. It takes 30 seconds or so to lock into the network, and then the LCD display shows you how many bars of signal strength you have. You can then make and receive calls just like with a normal phone.
Iridium handsets are expensive, but the airtime rates are reasonable. A satellite phone is truly an investment in terms of cost per device, but the good news is that change on the satellite phone technology front has been very slow. In fact, Iridium has only launched one newer handset, the Motorola 9555, in the last 10 years!
Built like a rock, the Iridium 9505a is completely dust proof and built to CF22 military-grade specifications for ruggedized outdoor use.
The Iridium satellite phone network doesn't really support much besides voice calls and basis SMS messages. While there are ways to accommodate very low speed data connections, these are extremely limited and primitive compared to the much more sophisticated alternatives available, specifically Inmarsat BGAN service, for example.