5 ms·

gps+iridium uplink ?

• perlgeek 12y ago
  ... and the iridium uplink, which is presumably expensive, only as a fall-back if normal HF communication is available.
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  • laxatives 12y ago
    Expensive relative to what? The consumer grade iridium device is only ~$1000.
    • mikeash 12y ago
      Per-minute or per-byte charges are also really high. But that's "high" relative to individuals, maybe not compared to operating an airliner.
      • achamayou 12y ago
        Something like 3USD/min it looks like. At GSM's 13 kbit/s, that's ~0.4cent/kbit. It doesn't sound like a significant cost to report a position regularly at that rate, not compared with the cost of flying an airliner anyway.
      • laxatives 12y ago
        I'm not sure about the details of the plan, but iridium offers unlimited data for something like ~$100/month. I'm sure bandwidth is terrible, but again, these costs are small, even for individuals.
        • mikeash 12y ago
          That's impressive! I severely overestimated the current cost of the service. Here's a page with good info for the curious: http://www.groundcontrol.com/Iridium_Go.htm http://www.groundcontrol.com/Iridium_Go.htm