Satellite phone
A portable rugged satellite phone weighing 266 grams works everywhere on Earth.
The Iridium 9555 is a portable rugged satellite phone that weighs 266 grams. So it's slightly larger than a normal cell phone, but the difference is that it works everywhere on Earth. Since it costs one USD per minute to call, we only use it when we have to.
You can send free text messages to your phone and reply to them with short emails in the same way as a regular text message. You just need to enter your email address first in the message.
On tours that allow you to bring a laptop, it also works to connect to the internet. As the data rate in Iridium's system is a low 2.4 kbit/s, uses are somewhat limited, but via special software (accelerator) it is possible to send and receive e-mails, check the weather, update blogs and Facebook. Iridium also has its own site that is optimized for web surfing at these low speeds. It works really well.
There are more modern satellite phone systems with faster data transmission but unfortunately these do not have reliable coverage in the northern parts of the world.
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