| The Iridium satellite network is the only satellite phone network that covers the whole globe. It is a system of 66 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites which give actual pole to pole coverage. |  |
Iridium uses high compression rates for its audio and data transfer services and because of this the audio quality is somewhat worse than that of competetive providers such as Globalstar or Thuraya. But unlike Globalstar, Iridium suffers from dropped call and service availability problems to a far smaller extent.
It also should be noted that the data downloads rates in the Iridium are quite slow (usually around 2Kbps) making any potential heavy usage practically impossible.
There have been a few handheld phones available for Iridium subscribers. The oldest are the Kyocera SD-66K and Kyocera SS-66K. Both of these have been discontinued. The current phone supplied by Iridium is the Iridium 9505a. This has been a replacement for the Motorola 9500 and 9505. Although both of these are no longer available from Iridium, they can still be bought on the second hand market. There have not been any significant changes between the Motorola 9505 and the Iridium 9505a. Yet potential users must note that there have been changes made to the equipment and accesories used with both these phones.
Iridium phone call cost vary, but nonetheless are usually higher than those of the competition. Costs range from $1.50 to over $10 per minut depending on the current plan of the subscriber and type of call that is being made.
For many satellite users Iridium has become the only alternative. This has resulted in quite significant growth in the number of subscribers.
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