mmaarten:
Taking a satphone isn't that bad. It's just one of those devices which can help you to "live your dream".
I totally agree, you cannot expect to simply dial 911 and instantly your worries are gone. You cannot repair a flat tyre with it and it doesn't supply you with water or spareparts, but along with good planning and preparation it can help you surviving a hazardious situation. BTW you also cannot expect to drive off into the desert, get a flat tyre and be rescued by a movie-crew (yes , you were lucky).
See it as just one of those modern wonders; a device like a gps is much more convienient than a compas although you could skip both and navigate on the sun and the stars, you can make fire by rubbing wood but I prefer a lighter.
If you do take a satphone collect some contacts (the campsite you left yesterday, the local HUBBmember who offered you a 2 days further on the road) and be preparred to wait a few days untill help arrive.

One aspect of a satphone almost never mentioned is the possibility that the people backhome can contact you when there is an emergency situation on their side of the globe. Although I can imagine you just want to escape from all this backhome, for them it's quite reassuring (and easier to coop with your travels) if they can send you a sms the moment they desporate want to get in touch with you.

About epirb
I looked into those 2 years ago and decided to go for a thuraya satphone.
An EPIRB is a maritiem device, since a short while you can find them for land use too called PLB. Those are registrated devices, the name, lenght and type of vessel are signed to a code this beacon will send in case of an emergency. These devices are not very cheap and because of the registration difficult to find secondhand, if you can find one you have to make a new registration otherwise the beacon will send a wrong i.d., an oiltanker in the middle of the sahara or a yaght in a rainforrest ?
And one of the main reasons to choose a satphone, you have to get your license (in the netherlands called Marcom-A) to own and or registrar a EPIRB.
A EPIRB beacon will send your coordinates to a rescue party, a thuraya can double as a gps (altough very basic) and can send your coordinates via sms to whoever you want and offcourse you can speak to them.

regards

__________________
bart & sophie

Before you decide on any satphone check if the provider covers the area where you intend to travel. As far as I know Thuraya & Iridium do NOT cover the whole globe, Motorola does.

Having a look at their respective websites, you can check the maps regarding their coverage.

Hans

__________________
Only when we pause to wonder
do we go beyond the limits of our little lives.
(Rod McKuen)

Hi, Thuraya certainly can't cover the world, it uses a single, geostationary satellite with a backup one next to it.

Motorola created and launched Iridium before GSM became convenient and cheap. They had this idea that it would be good to talk wherever you may be.
It's a series of dozens of satellites that orbit faster and cover the world (as long as there are no trees or you're not in a ravine)

Last I heard, Boeing had bought the Iridium system and were selling lots of phones to the US military, so at least it's not going to shut down soon (there was a danger of that a while ago) The deal involved Motorola getting exclusive rights to phone manufacture.

Call quality: the handover system between Iridium satellites leaves a lot to be desired, in open land you can expect to catch a signal, make your call and be cut off about 12 minutes later as the satellite disappears over the horizon. There will already be another in view but they don't seem to communicate with each other. I found this REALLY annoying for data calls and during the long Christmas family call.

As Thuraya is based on one, bigger, satellite, call quality and continuity is much better.
Iridium know this and (when I was looking) offered quite competitive airtime rates on the African continent to try and keep up with the Thuraya market.
It actually turned out cheaper to use my Iridium than one of the many teleboutiques in Mali and parts of BF.

Why have one?
Maarten and Sophie-Bart have covered this very well, and if it weren't for my parents (and in-laws) we wouldn't have bothered. The emergency situation wouldn't necessarily arise on the trip, but at home, with a mum that goes bonkers and calls the brit embassy in Mali telling them to look for a white camper!
We always hid our gadgets near borders, and it took us 5 days playing around between Mali and Mori before I got the phone out again; that was too much for her.
In my case it was more important to be able to call and say everything's fine. Even if you're lying, which I did ;-)

Smokinchap, you chose. I chose Irirdium because I thought we would be leaving the Thuraya coverage zone, which we will, one day...

Luke

As an alternative to phones and pirb's, you could look at this.

https://star-traxx.com/

John

__________________
Nostradamus Ate My Hamster

I stand corrected. I never thought about the family back home.... for the simple reason that I don't have one. (makes travel very easy).

I can imagine that in the Netherlands (also my home-land) a epirb needs a license..... (this is one of the reasons I left... rules, rules, rules)... but in the more developed parts of the world (like australia) you can buy a second-hand epirb on just about evey street-corner. (which kind of eliminates the need )

I know they are usually marine-use... but they (the people who I hope know about this stuff : US coastguard) told me that every airplane scan's this frequency and that satelite's also pick it up. (406/121.5 mhz).
They also told me to have a insurance in case I trigger it. Press the button and you have to pay the resque.
They had no direct awnser as to who would rescue me somewhere in the desert. It all depends on the country... but the same goes for a sat-phone I guess

Then again... you can't call mum on your epirb

Maarten

__________________
maartensworld.com
beyond-anywhere.com

Thrane and thrane units. They are the size of a small laptop. They double up as internet modem too. They have a cordless phone. Weigh next to nothing. Can be used for hours on end. Skype runs on em. Video skype. Skype out!! and i know sometimes they let u do pay as you go....I think the airtime is sold by bgan. check it out.

Lovely units.
When I enquired in 2003 (not with Thrane) the BGAN contract was in the 23€/month range with data charged at 10 dollars per megabyte regardless of direction(upload/download).
A Skype video call could set you back a bit.
I convoyed for a while with a friend who had wangled a sponsorship deal with a French supplier; the BGAN really is like broadband at home. You need a PC to use it though.
For some reason that I didn't understand it wouldn't cover southern Africa though. Perhaps they've fixed/improved that.

G'luck
Luke