Big believer in having both SSB and satphone for a offshore boat or a long term near shore cruising boat. SSB is free once past cost of the radio, modem and Sailmail. Satphones don’t work well in severe weather or T storms. They complement each other. When one doesn’t work the other likely will. On stuff you don’t need hack proof reception or transmission (weather, social stuff, non critical emails etc.) using the SSB saves huge money as phone is cheap but data expensive with most satphone service plans. Very familiar with the 802 SSB with a pacnor 4 modem. It’s a piece of cake to operate. Learning curve is trivial. Don’t believe the hype that it is difficult. Huge jump in functionality going from any handheld satphone to a ships device like the KVH fleet one sailor. Worth every penny to do that if you’re a cruiser.
Cellphones are line of sight for all intents and purposes. Even near shore worthless. Depends on whether there’s a tower near you and your plan. It’s been frequent to be anchored in sight of land and have no cell service. Flipping through frequencies you can almost always get it done with SSB if you pick good times of day. Also it’s fun. Have traveled with a Go, globalstar, Spot and whatever handheld devices crew takes with them. End of day end up using the KVH and the 802 using the other stuff only for breadcrumbs.
End of rant.
