So, figured I'd step in. I've owned a GSP1600 and currently own an Iridium/Motorola 9505A and a Thrane&Thrane Explorer 300 BGAN terminal for Inmarsat. Both a couple good deals on eBay
A few notes:
- The orange tip? Like fake guns, they colored the tip of the erectile antenna orange to avoid people thinking you've got a gun.
- If it's not activated, it'll register and unregister repeatedly with the Globalstar network. No test calls.
- If you have CDMA (highly unlikely) you can register the cellular side. In the States for the longest time a Verizon MVNO did allow you to activate them on cellular, long past the E911 mandate. Of course, it was ONLY the cell side, so you still had two bills!
- The network was quite shite for a long bit of time due to satellite failures and pesky end-of-lifecycle issues. They had service down to $35 US a month for "unlimited" service at one point, mind you - but you had to use a "call times" tool to see that you can only make a 5 minute phone call for maybe two windows in the hour.
- The multipin connector on a lot of these terminals (not just Globalstar's) are full on docking stations for fixed stations. As an example, I could slot my Iridium into a dock that gives me RJ11 phoneline connectors, serial access, an external antenna, and lets me run it off mains power.
- Native data rates are 9600 baud on Globalstar and 2400 baud on Iridium. Normally, TCP "acceleration" is provided to give you compressed data around 10-20k speed.
BTW -- Globalstar will sell you their latest and greatest SatFi (satellite data/voice terminal for smartphones) for $1k US -- and all they give you is a Gumstix Overo, third-party WiFi module, and an off-the-shelf old stock Globalstar integrator's module - tied together with some dodgy rebranded OSS.