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You don't need to get too far out into rural areas to find places without "amazing cell coverage", and indeed no cell coverage at all. And anyone that's lived t

You don't need to get too far out into rural areas to find places without "amazing cell coverage", and indeed no cell coverage at all. And anyone that's lived through a disaster (whether hurricane, blizzard, or regional power outage) can tel you that the cell phone network is just not that resilient. Maybe low earth orbit satellites will make satellite communications ubiquitous through cell phones, but we're not there yet. (The iPhone 13 was rumored to have satellite capability, it did not, but it sounds like it's technologically possible so we could see it in the not too distant future)

mmaunder 5y ago
Side note: We use Hughes Satellite internet when camping in BLM land and it works great. The only down-side is that the dish is almost 1 meter and takes up my entire truck bed. It takes 15 mins to point at the bird, which isn't a biggie. But the propagation delay is a killer. Around 900ms. Can't wait for RV Starlink!!
- Johnny555 5y ago
  Yeah, if I spent significant time outside of cell range, I'd probably carry a real satellite phone or maybe one of the satellite communicators that let you send txt messages. Right now I just carry a personal locator beacon in case of emergency. I've been on the wait list for StarLink for 6 months, like you, I'm still hoping for the RV dish.
linsomniac 5y ago
That is true, but I will say that I had surprising amounts of coverage via Verizon ~5 years ago when I was offroading. I'd generally have to be up high, but most of my trails had enough coverage that I could check in with my wife or provide emergency communication within around 10 minutes drive of much of the trails I was on. Google Fi, on the other hand, has dramatically less coverage in those situations. I ended up getting one of those ReqQLink locator beacons, that has no monthly charge, after my son was running around like crazy during a off roading lunch break, and came too close to cracking his head on a rock.
jjav 5y ago
> You don't need to get too far out into rural areas to find places without "amazing cell coverage", and indeed no cell coverage at all. Even in Silicon Valley, it doesn't take much distance on a mountain bike to get completely out of any cellphone coverage.

mmaunder 5y ago

Side note: We use Hughes Satellite internet when camping in BLM land and it works great. The only down-side is that the dish is almost 1 meter and takes up my entire truck bed. It takes 15 mins to point at the bird, which isn't a biggie. But the propagation delay is a killer. Around 900ms. Can't wait for RV Starlink!!

Johnny555 5y ago
Yeah, if I spent significant time outside of cell range, I'd probably carry a real satellite phone or maybe one of the satellite communicators that let you send txt messages. Right now I just carry a personal locator beacon in case of emergency. I've been on the wait list for StarLink for 6 months, like you, I'm still hoping for the RV dish.

linsomniac 5y ago

That is true, but I will say that I had surprising amounts of coverage via Verizon ~5 years ago when I was offroading. I'd generally have to be up high, but most of my trails had enough coverage that I could check in with my wife or provide emergency communication within around 10 minutes drive of much of the trails I was on. Google Fi, on the other hand, has dramatically less coverage in those situations. I ended up getting one of those ReqQLink locator beacons, that has no monthly charge, after my son was running around like crazy during a off roading lunch break, and came too close to cracking his head on a rock.

jjav 5y ago

> You don't need to get too far out into rural areas to find places without "amazing cell coverage", and indeed no cell coverage at all. Even in Silicon Valley, it doesn't take much distance on a mountain bike to get completely out of any cellphone coverage.