I work with a
Satellite phone dealer and just wanted to offer some friendly input based on our experiences and our customers'. The data on the IsatPhone is, as stated, extremely slow. With a strong connection, just trying to load the
google homepage timed out. This phone is NOT designed for surfing the web. With 3rd party compression
software (like UUPlus or Ocens) you can send/receive text based emails and download grib files. We had a customer try to go to a website to find
weather info, and this failed as the webpage was too large to download with such slow speeds (2.4kbps). Keep in mind that dial up is only 56k.
The Iridium phone is about the same for data. Really no advantage to either one as far as data goes, because it's going to be bad no matter what.
As for the comment about the phone not working well while moving, this doesn't sound right. The way the Inmarsat
network is, once you are locked onto the
satellite, unless something comes between you and the
satellite, you should not drop a call. This is superior to Iridium because the Iridium satellites are constantly moving, so if you are locked onto a satellite and it drops over the horizon, then you will drop the call/lose connection and your phone will have to connect to another satellite. It is very common for the Iridium phones to drop calls, although it is not impossible to make a lengthy (45min+) phone call.
No
satellite phone will work from within the cabin/indoors without some kind of external antenna. It goes off a "line of sight" technology, as in if your phone can't "see" the satellite, then there is no connection. Even tinted glass can block this signal.
I hope this helps!