This is what the irridium system does, as well as Milstar, and other commerical telecom systems. Irridium is a medium orbit, where milstar and the commercial t

This is what the irridium system does, as well as Milstar, and other commerical telecom systems. Irridium is a medium orbit, where milstar and the commercial telcom are in geosynchronous orbits. A geo satellite is typically a few thousand kg with kilowatts of power. But for the low cost option consider how much bandwidth can the onboard transmitter they provide handle. How big will your ground station need to be in order to pick up the signal? I suspect a tracking dish and hardware will exceed $8k by at least an order of magnitude.