# Satellite Phone in Bahamas



## lmwsail (Aug 12, 2007)

We plan to take our first extended cruise this fall for six months. We will be leaving the Chesapeake Bay in mid-October, traveling the ICW and spending 2-3 months in the Bahamas. We'll be able to use our cell phones along the US east coast, but will need a satellite phone for personal and minor business use in the Bahamas. We've heard conflicting statuses on Globalstar's performance in the Bahamas. We'd appreciate hearing your personal current experiences with Globalstar, Iridium, or another service in the Bahamas. Also, what's the best way to connect to the internet without SSB in remote areas in the Bahamas. Thanks! Linda


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## ebs001 (May 8, 2006)

If you are in areas in the Bahamas that have cellphone service, you can use your Cellphone, however; it's very expensive. One way to redue this costs is to have your phone unlocked and then use a Bahamas SIM card. Costs are much higher than in the US but considerabley cheaper than using your own carrier. $0.49 per minute to call anywhere in the US. 
As far as internet is concerned WiFi is available in many areas and most of the time it's free.


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## camaraderie (May 22, 2002)

Everything I read says that the Gstar situation continues to deteriorate. It was fairly bad in the Bahamas even before but at least it was cheap. 
Iridium works great but will kill you on fees. Cheaper to do the cell phone there.
SKYPE is cheap and connections (wired and wireless) are available all over the Abacos and Exumas that are good...though you need to be near civilization. This may be an alternative for you.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

From what I've heard regarding Globalstar, they are not reliable, and may not survive the problems they're currently having.

Most carriers, if you ask them and explain the situation, will send you an unlock code for your phone. T-mobile is very good about this, AT&T/Cingular less so... Verizon and Sprint use technologies that aren't available in the Caribbean IIRC.

WiFi or wired internet connections, particularly if you have a laptop, are probably the way to go. If you don't like Skype, you can always get a Vonage soft-phone...which allows you to make phone calls via Voice Over IP using your laptop. It would also give you a US-based phone number with full voice-mail capabilities, so that friends and such can call you without any international call charges.


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## lmwsail (Aug 12, 2007)

The cheapest Bahamas SIM card rate I could find on the internet was over $1 per minute. Who offers the $.49 per minute rate?


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## mangotree123 (Jan 24, 2011)

*Airtime for Bahamas Sim Card*

You can buy airtime cards for your bahamas sim card and also bahamas calling cards at ezminutes.com


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## ebs001 (May 8, 2006)

You buy the SIM card and the minutes from Betelco.


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## mdbee (May 2, 2007)

Although, I wouldn't say this would make a substitute for a satellite phone, it might make a good supplement for communications:

http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=116

You would of course need to find more information of which satellite system they use and maybe some feedback from current users.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

They are owned by Globalstar and use Globalstar's network. However, the data portion of the Globalstar network hasn't had the problems the voice side has had.


mdbee said:


> Although, I wouldn't say this would make a substitute for a satellite phone, it might make a good supplement for communications:
> 
> SPOT Connect
> 
> You would of course need to find more information of which satellite system they use and maybe some feedback from current users.


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## speciald (Mar 27, 2007)

Globalstar has launched their first set of new sattelites and will have two more launches by Spring. Coverage should improve. The advantage is you can get email without buying a data plan for your phone that may not be available in the Bahamas. We use our Globalstar to get gribs for navigation and can get web pages using an accelerator.


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## QuickMick (Oct 15, 2009)

here is a decent review of the kvh and and iridium model, which also discusses pricing. _NOT CHEAP!!_

SatCom Upgrades | Yachting Magazine


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## cskaplan (Mar 23, 2011)

*how do you get email from a Gstar phone?*

email would be a good solution for us. Gstar is super cheap compared to the others right now. We may also pick up a T-mobile phone and a bahamas SIM for it. I don't think we would even need to activate it with T-mobile.
If Wi-Fi is available I like skype, it's cheap and it works. 
We will be cruising the Bahamas for a couple of months and like to get away from the busy islands, so I don't think we will find much WiFi.
BTW, what's a grib?


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## labatt (Jul 31, 2006)

GRIB files are small (big if you aggregate a lot of info together though) weather files that can be downloaded to weather software on your PC or chartplotter. They contain wind, temp, wave, pressure, etc. Check out GRIB.US > Home and UGrib.


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## SVAuspicious (Oct 31, 2006)

Remember that the computer models that generate gribs don't show fronts, and fronts are what you care about the most in the Bahamas.


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## labatt (Jul 31, 2006)

I have to say - the Sirius satellite weather option I got for my Raymarine Chartplotter was worth its weight in gold. We could almost predict to the second when we would be hit by a storm. I remember coming up the NJ coast from Norfolk to NYC and getting hit by 70kt winds. The Coast Guard never put out a weather alert but we had been following the fronts on the Sirius for half the day. We even called the CG at one point to ask them if they had more info on the winds at the leading edge of the storm - and were told it wasn't bad with only 12-15kt winds. Looking at the lightning strikes and density of the storm, along with the storm speed (>50kts) we knew it would be worse, and were all prepped when it actually hit us. Without the Sirius we could have been seriously injured or worse. Anyway - I know it's slightly off topic, but I just wanted to point out that there are multiple tools that can provide great safety while out sailing.


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