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Thuraya Comeback
13:08 p.m. EST Jan 27, 2005
“Thuraya – Overnight Start Dying?”, we wrote last autumn, after a multitude of expeditions to Nepal reported severe problems with the Thuraya satellite phones.
The Fix
After ExplorersWeb made Thuraya aware of the problem in Nepal, they made an investigation into what had happened and why, and gave us the following explanation:
“Our explanation to the whole 'issue' is quite simple: We had a convergence of beams-- a 'double coverage' so to speak, that resulted from two different satellites focusing on a small common area. It was from within that small area that you reported the problems. This overlap meant that some users being registered under one of the satellite beam could not get seamless coverage when moving to the next beam.”
“In a nutshell, it was all due to a technical problem within the satellite coverage overlap area. However after an extensive troubleshooting exercise we overhauled the configuration and have eliminated the problem.”
Thuraya has a very nice customer service section (call 100 from your Thuraya), but suspicious by nature and practice we had to get the information confirmed.
The Verification
Not easy to find an expedition in Nepal during December though, but Simone Moro was helping out at his Shisha winter climb, and soon reported excellent coverage and stability from his Thuraya and PDA solution.
“The Great Walker”, Diego reported some cut offs from his similar equipment, when walking across Tibet, but we could never pinpoint if this was related to shadows or Thuraya problem, but in the end his data com worked out.
At the moment Jimmy Chin is up in Khumbu doing some climbs (including that VERY high and steep ice-fall across from Namche) with Conrad Anker and the Sherpa Climbing School. His setup with Thuraya and iPAQ have had no connection problems.
It’s a go.
The explanation from Thuraya in combination with the field tests, made us change our “hold” to a “buy” last week.
Check out the New Thuraya 7101 current all-time low prices (links section). Always get your sat phones from reliable sources.
Image: Simone Moro using CONTACT 3.0 over his Thuraya and PDA at Shisha this month. Courtesy Simone Moro
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