Thuraya Avis 2

Since several years I was a satisfied customer of this affordable satphone service. I've chosen Thuraya with its low monthly fares because I use my satphone only as backup for crisis situations.

Once a yaer I added my 39USD to my account to keep the service alive and I had 20USD additional on the account for 20 min phone time.

Now I made an error and recharged one week not in time. Thuraya erased my 20USD phone time "due to dormancy policy". The help desk doesn't help: I got wrong information (6-month vs. 12-month dormancy policy) and wrong standard text blocks - some times I had the impression, talking to a defective AI. They send me to third party helpdesks, which don't answer. And good-will-actions for long time customers is completly unknown and not in discussion. :-(

By now I think, this was my last recharge. In parallel I am testing starlink, which seems to be a realible alternative (starting 9 EUR/month) to the astronomical internet costs of thuraya. :-)

This Satellite Company Partnered with a local Company that provided their phones and the reload cards which was the only way to add funds to their account.

You have to reload the phone once a year otherwise the load becomes unusable,

No reloads were available for over 9 months and so may SIMS got cut. I asked Thuraya to open line the phone so I could buy both a SIM and a load from a more reliable source but so far they have refused. They see unaware that their local partner cannot provide reload services for so long. The Philippines is subject to typhoons and earlier in the year volcanic eruption plus an expected devastating earth quake. These phones are critical in an emergency, I gave up on Thuraya in the end and got a Inmarsat.