Best Satellite Phone For Africa, Big 5 Targets?

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

Hey there guys and gals. Who do you all recommend for "Great" satellite phone service for Zambia in that region of Africa. I didn't take a sat phone my first trip in 2014 that was in SA. I did in 17 and 21 the service with this company/carrier was awful. They just contacted me again I'm just not going to pay 700$ for that bad of service when I can get on Facebook when back in camp & make calls. These phones would barely work and when it did it kept dropping calls. I'm going to a great camp in June with internet and I do have Whatsapp on my phone now but I'd like to have a Sat phone for back up. Remember satellite phones work good in SA, I'm speaking of in the remote areas of Zambia, Zimbabwe ect ect.......... Recommendations will be greatly appreciated.

Also where can I purchase the 3D life size buffalo, leopard targets?

 

[Tokoloshe Safaris]

Hi As, a company we use Iridium, ok. One of our PHS phones his wife nightly, Iridium. You will usually be ablestanding in a certain spot facing a certain direction with only lip movement. The rest of use our cell phone.

Lon

 

[C.W. Richter]

Sat phones work everywhere on Earth there's a clear path between it and the satellite (unlike the horizontal limitations of cell towers-up to 20 mi). Sometimes the signal is blocked by rock formations/mountainsides in the way, heavy cloud cover, and during power outages their systems occasionally go down. It shouldn't matter where you are. Also, you'd be surprised of the great cell coverage that exists in Southern Africa (it's better than America in some very rural places, as it IS the communications system!) Do a google search for the best phones available (There's a shop at the airport in Lusaka.)

 

[wildwilderness]

In the past when I would use sat phones Irridium seamed to have the better service.

Now that I have the InReach I just use that all the time. Easy enough to check in, though harder to have a conversation via text.

Then as mentioned WiFi calling is nice

 

[Rare Breed]

Hey there guys and gals. Who do you all recommend for "Great" satellite phone service for Zambia in that region of Africa. I didn't take a sat phone my first trip in 2014 that was in SA. I did in 17 and 21 the service with this company/carrier was awful. They just contacted me again I'm just not going to pay 700$ for that bad of service when I can get on Facebook when back in camp & make calls. These phones would barely work and when it did it kept dropping calls. I'm going to a great camp in June with internet and I do have Whatsapp on my phone now but I'd like to have a Sat phone for back up. Remember satellite phones work good in SA, I'm speaking of in the remote areas of Zambia, Zimbabwe ect ect.......... Recommendations will be greatly appreciated.

Also where can I purchase the 3D life size buffalo, leopard targets?

Iridium 9555 I would never be in Africa without it. Every year I get 100 prepaid hours for Africa and good to go

 

[Rare Breed]

Sorry minutes. lol!

 

[Nhoro]

Download WhatsApp on your phone and use camp WiFi. You can see, call and video call depending on your camps bandwidth to anyone else with the free app

 

[sureshot375]

I’m going to throw out an alternative. I use a garmin in reach2 messenger as a backup and way to communicate away from camp. I have used In Zim and Argentina with great success.

It pairs with an app on your phone so messaging is easy.

Text only. No photos, videos, or voice.

Has an SOS function.

Unlimited plans are about 70 bucks a month with no annual commitment.

Device is small and easy to carry.

 

[Sourdough]

Okay here is the current skinny.

It doesn't so much depend of the phone as it does on the Satellite network.

Iridium. This is the only Satellite network that has global coverage. Data is for all intents and purposes very slow and limited. Voice quality is poor. Iridium has the most satellites in orbit (for our conversation here) which provides redundancy in case a satellite goes down. And it is the only network that has global coverage. I didn't include a coverage map because coverage is global. inReach runs on the Iridium Satellite network so works everywhere.

Globalstar: This Satellite network has much better voice, but coverage is far from everywhere. The first map is coverage for voice and data. The second map is coverage of the Spot Communicator (their version of the inReach).

StarLink: No voice but truly High-Speed Internet so VOIP (Voice Over IP) calls give you that ability. The problem is coverage is limited to non-existent where we'd like it. Here's hoping Elon Musk has plans for StarLink to cover the world.

You should know that some countries prohibit the use of satellite phones (you can probably guess most of them).

 

[wvfred]

I'm not sure what area of Zambia you will be in but in 2021 I hunted Chifunda GMA and my cell phone had good service about all the time.I have T mobile and the rates were 25 cents a minute.