Yes, satellite phones are expensive, heavy and bulky. However, that is almost entirely the result of features that aren’t needed for emergency use: ability to receive (as opposed to just sending), bandwidth sufficient for voice calls, and reserved capacity for routine use. Eliminate these requirements, and it gets a whole lot cheaper and easier. Add a parabolic dish to the receiving satellite, and it wouldn’t even require any hardware changes to the phone, just firmware changes.
Cell-to-satellite communication can be cheap and ubiquitous, it just isn’t because no one’s tried to make it so.
Yes, satellite phones are expensive, heavy and bulky. However, that is almost entirely the result of features that aren’t needed for emergency use: ability to receive (as opposed to just sending), bandwidth sufficient for voice calls, and reserved capacity for routine use. Eliminate these requirements, and it gets a whole lot cheaper and easier. Add a parabolic dish to the receiving satellite, and it wouldn’t even require any hardware changes to the phone, just firmware changes.
Cell-to-satellite communication can be cheap and ubiquitous, it just isn’t because no one’s tried to make it so.