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Wed Sep 21 15:07:33 BST 2005

At 6:24 AM -0400 9/21/05, DocRickFry at aol.com wrote:
>Steve--
>Satellite phones have potential use except that they are expensive, and
>whoever you are trying to call must also have such a phone--not easy 
>to establish

Modern commercial satellite phones are usually dual mode [1] -- they 
will attempt to connect via cellular radio, and only go for the 
satellite if they can't establish cellular connectivity.  In either 
event, the phone doesn't connect directly to the other user, but to 
the public switched telephone network (PSTN).  A conventional 
cellular phone uses the same logic, in that it has wireless, via 
cellular transceivers, rather than wired access to the PSTN.

The user at the other end, if the access communications in that area 
are still operational, can have a conventional wired telephone.

This is not always true for military satellite transceivers, although 
many of them connect to a military switched network.  Even if there 
are two or more stations in the call, there will usually be some 
terrestrial switching in the path.

[1] or triple mode or even more modes, so, for example, they can work
     with North American and European cellular systems.

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