Satellite Email via GPS?

mtm_king asks: "Has anyone had any experience with Magellan GSC 100 Satellite Communicator? It is a GPS that does email. (Their web site pricing and info is out of date.) The GSC costs $850 unit, $130 for case and antenna, another $50 in sign up fees, then it is $30 a month for the service. My parents live full time in Mexico (outside of Todo Santos, cool place) and just have a cell phone which is expensive and flaky ($1.00 a minute+ from the US) . Trying to communicating with them is really frustrating. I am thinking about buying one of these units for them,but it is getting close to some 'serious money' considering I do not know how well it works. I know I could try to get their PC on the internet through the cell phone but considering that they have to stand by a window or go outside to use it, and the cost of an ISP and more minutes on the cell phone...well, I am looking for cheaper/more reliable alternatives than that." Would the GSC really work better in this case than using the cell phone modem?

What a lame post, informative?

[marcus]

He just copied the web page without any attribution.

It's a crime.

Re:What a lame post, informative?

[marcus]

What are links for?

If we use the web as if it was expected to fail, then we could just as well have stuck with usenet.

Even if he thinks that countermeasures are justified then he should properly credit it as copied verbatim from the site.

Or, do like most and post a link to a mirror.
Or, do like most and wait for complaints.
Or, do like most and realize that a commercial site that has few images like magellan.com is not likely to be slashdotted especially since the article never made it to the front page.

I mean really, should the /. editors just copy the contents of the links that are(would have been) posted and post them with the whole story?

I repeat, why do we have links?

Orbcomm, not so good...

[dargaud]

I have used the Orbcomm system, and I must say it's the worst communication system I've ever used. Yes, worse than SMS messages.

• Messages are limited to about 200 characters !
• more than half the messages we sent got lost.
• more than half the messages that were sent to us got lost
• the synch is archaic to say the least.

An email sender must first find a satellite than will pass above you in the next 36 hours (IIRC) and send it the message. When the satellite passes above you, if your unit is on it squirts the data down. Otherwise it's lost. You need a separate program to compute satellite passes and there's no inter-satellite communication. Long delays. It's so complex, there's no way Joe Schmuck can send you an email.

From a moving unit to a ground based station is a little easier: keep your unit on until a satellite passes overhead, that's all.

Privacy & access

[rf600r]

This looks great. But...

Wha about privacy? Do spammers get access to your most recent coordinates, too?

Can I also access the email from, say, an IMAP account? Where is the email stored?

Other than that, I want one.

What's wrong with the cell phone?

[fille]

I don't get the point. You want to buy a 1000$ unit just to email?! Uploading email just takes a few seconds so it can't be that expensive, can it?

I would use Iridium

[phil-trick]

At least then you can use it as a phone as well. Also you can sort of send text messages to the phone as well, but not the other way round.

Expensive initially, but has more uses.
Phil

Re:How 'cool'

[GannettGeek]

You obviously haven't driven through Mississippi yet.

Use tunneling?

[anthony_dipierro]

Can you output the data to a computer/PDA? If so it would be pretty trivial to tunnel just about anything through email. $30/month for unlimited internet access is pretty cool, even if it is dirt slow.

Have you considered SMS?

[d4emon]

Short Message Service messaging is cheap (if not outright free), reliable and compatible with email. Most new phones allow you to send SMS messages to email addresses and not just phone numbers, while you can use the phone companies email to SMS gateways to send email to the handset. Sure there is a character limit (about 250 chars) but for decades people did more with much, much less ("Thnk tlgrph. Stp."). Worst case, send a few messages.

Hope the suggestion helps.

Check Out Iridium

[zulux]

A iridium phone costs (after hidious federal taxes) between $1000 and $1800 depending on model. Their cheapy plan, cost $20 per month for service and $1.50 per min - they have a cradel for $150 that makes the thing behave like a slow serial modem. With a good ISP, it you get 4800 baud. They give you a Windows CD that you can use that will compress the stream and use their ISP. I threw it away - and just use SSH for it's compression on a BSD laptop.

The cool thing - is that most plans charge by ten second increments. Volume plans can get you down to $.60 a min.

Also they work greay in an emergency - I had no trouble getting a line on Sep11, but cell and land line diden't work.

Curious thing though - after Sep11 (around the 25th or so) - Iridium calls took an extra five seconds to connect. I think shady people were being monitered by our frinds at the NSA. Or I could just need to re-adjust my foil hat.

Sorry 'bout the rambeling. I need coffee.

Oh - the best thing about Iridium VS Garmond: You family can use it in an emergency, when communiction is a life saver and not just a novilty for email.

Good luck - sounds like a cool project and I admire you for trying to keep in touch with family.

Be Aware!

[D.A. Zollinger]

GPS Satellites do not carry any extraneous information, such as data streams to carry e-mail, etc. If Magellan's unit provides communicaion abilities, it will be with other similar units, or through a 3rd party provider, such as a cellular phone company, the latter being more probable. If they are using a 3rd party provider, does their provider extend their service into Mexico?

I know there are several projects to extend the reach of the internet into technologically dead areas of the world. And while I don't know all of the details, I know there has been an effort to use HAM radio as a transmission medium to connect computers in areas where they have poor or no communication infrastructure. Perhaps a better 'Ask Slashdot' would be to pose the question of how to connect when there are no local ISPs.

Re:Be Aware!

[D.A. Zollinger]

After reading their web page, it seems they do use a 3rd party provider for their messaging, ORBCOMM, who's web site was down when I tried to access it. If your parents already have a computer, it might be easier to find a satellite modem like the one offered here [magellangps.com]. Too bad theirs is an OEM unit without even a case. How good of a provider is ORBCOMM? And do others manufacture satellite modems for their service? Sounds like a lot more research has to be done...

Outside Todos Santos?

[God_Retired]

Are they living in a boat? Great surfing at Todos, although I haven't been there in about 6 years.

Starband?

[bluGill]

See a recient ./ question about starband. Seems like the costs are only slightly more, but you get a true internet connection, and it has been around longer.