I was hoping that my Iridium phone could do the necessary but the baud rates are atrocious, if someone sends you an attachment you're sunk; and it drops a call rather than hand you over to the next satellite (not geostationary orbit). At least with Thuraya there's only one satellite so the call shouldn't drop.
In my tour of WA this year I met a family in a truck who let me use their connection via a Geolink RBGAN antenna. It's an absolute dream come true! You get 144kbps, enough to use webmail on a web navigator. What's more connection time isn't counted, only data downloaded (12 dollars a Meg, don't send home hi-res photos). It works in the Thuruya coverage zone. If you get a net2phone account back home it could well work out cheaper than a satphone (although you'd have to switch on the computer)
Sometimes they do special offers where the antenna comes free when you subscribe for a year (about 160 dollars)
Have a look at http://www.satcomdistribution.com/re...e-ip-modem.asp and geolink.com
May your pistes be without corrugations
Luke
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