Is there a chance that I could contact Brian Savage/Colleen Ryan?. I've been having some trouble finding unbiased info on people's recent experience with Iridium (I'm surprised at how little is on the web when I do a Google search).

The questions I have include: Are they still using it? How often do they use it? Has it been working well/how has the service been? Can they easily connect on the high seas? What sort of actual speeds have they seen? Would they recommend it as a good e-mail alternative to SSB Mail? Thanks, Matt D.

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Q. Are they still using it?

A. Yes, and it (Iridium) works very well. We recommend our server--uuplus.com--as being as fast and efficient as anything we have used. Typically, we can send/receive up to 20k of compressed e-mails in under a minute, which makes it a $1.50 call on Iridium.

Q. How often do they use it?

A. Just about every day. Typically we send and receive 5 to 10 e-mails a day.

Q. Has it been working well/how has the service been?

A. Very well. Occasionally it takes us 2 to 3 attempts over a couple of minutes to log on, but these are Iridium service problems rather than Uuplus. Very occasionally, the satellites are badly arranged for us and we cannot get a good signal, particularly when in a harbour or anchored next to an island, so we leave it for an hour or so.

Q. Can they easily connect on the high seas?

A. Yes, rarely have any problems in open water. And we are just using the car aerial pushed out through a hatch, so the masts could be in the way, but they don't seem to have any effect.

Q. What sort of actual speeds have they seen?

A. The real issue is characters per second (cps). As this is displayed by the various programs we have used, we don't know if this is e-mails only or also includes all the message handling data as well. Also, Uuplus is a duplex (sends and receives in parallel) rather than simplex (sends your outgoing e-mails then receives the incoming, as with Outlook Express for example). So this means that if the physical line speed is 2400bps as with Iridium, with duplex you can effectively double this. 2400bps at maximum rate should theoretical give 300cps at 8bits per character. We have seen the Uuplus cps counter run at 540cps, and normally at around 450-500cps when we have e-mails going both ways. With another system we have used, it runs at around 150cps, so Uuplus is definably efficient.

Q. Would they recommend it as a good e-mail alternative to SSB Mail?

A. We see SSB SailMail as a good alternative to Iridium. If you have a lot of e-mail traffic--we are running a small business, writing articles such as this, as well as keeping touch with friends and family--then the weekly message limits and no attachments of SSB systems such as SailMail wouldn't work for us. But we also keep in touch with 2 or 3 sailing friends who use SailMail and are very pleased with it.

So you takes your choice.

Actually the set up costs are pretty much the same for both, running costs are much higher on Iridium--we spend about $90 a month on e-mail, made up from about $1.50 to $2 a day call costs, $20 Iridium monthly service charge, and $27 a month for Uuplus. Against $200 a year for SailMail, this seems expensive, but as I said, it wouldn't work for us based upon our traffic.

In addition, of course, with Iridium you also have a telephone. This works well, but operates a bit like the old transatlantic phone calls, or the TV satellite links, with pauses between speaking, so we have resorted on occasions to using 'Over' like with VHF!. However, even at $1.50 a minute, it is still cheaper than land calls (Tahiti to UK and Indonesia to UK are two that spring to mind) so we do use it occasionally. We have only been cut off once due to bad signal, probably due to where we were anchored. Also, it has be a boon when there is a family emergency and you are anchored somewhere remote.