A satellite cell phone rental enables you to keep in constant contact with your family, friends, and business associates no matter where on Earth that you travel. If you have a service provider that is located inside the United States, your current phone will not work when you travel overseas. Therefore, for any international travel, you will need a separate phone. Renting is often the best option because international trips are normally few and far between for most people. However, depending on where you go abroad, a normal GSM international phone might not be enough. Those phones work in a little over 200 countries worldwide. However, these countries are very populated and tend to be throughout Europe and the most western part of Asia. Therefore, if you are traveling to the Middle East or Africa for example, you will need a different phone to suit your needs. Satellite phones offer coverage worldwide, even in the most remote and destitute areas so that no matter where you go, you will never be completely alone.
There are several different satellite cell phone rental companies, two of which, Iridium and Thuraya, are featured on this site. No matter the company though, most any satellite phone that you can rent will come complete with a handheld unit, the type and size of which will depend on the company that you rent the phone from, free voice mail and data transmission, free incoming calls, additional batteries, a rapid charger, an in car charger, travel adaptors for foreign electrical outlets, and an instructional booklet and starter guide. In addition, most satellite service providers offer 24 hour global customer service every day of the year.
Also, some satellite cell phone rental units have the ability to connect to the Internet, even in whatever remote location you might happen to be in at the time. These units offer a high-speed connection that is up to 144 kbps and is always on, meaning that you pay for the amount of data you send and receive not the length of time that you are connected to the Internet.