A couple of weeks ago I was on the "Pride of Bilbao" for a 36h ferry journey from Portsmouth, UK to Bilbao, Spain. I was quite surprised to see a message on my phone saying welcome to the 'Isle of Man'. (Though obviously we were nowhere close). I noticed I had picked up "USA730" on my phone (and had max signal the entire way). There was obviously a transmitter on board. On top deck I noticed a "Telenor" system. (A bit of research later told me about the CellatSea Service), though I am puzzled of the links between Telenor, CellAtSea, USA730, and the IOM???
I recall, 2 years ago, I had been on a ferry from Roscoff in France to Plymouth (UK) and had picked up a 'welcome to Iceland' message and had similar full coverage the entire way. (don't remember the carrier though). Obviously we were nowhere close to Iceland either.
Apart from text messages, I never actually used my phone on either crossing, but does anyone know if such facilities (which I presume are local GSM facilities with a sat linkup) are treated/charged the same as the land-based GSM carriers (in the countries where they are registered, which in my case was IOM and Iceland)? If so are there could there be free incoming options with 09 and Callkey? I presume when Ryanair launches their inflight phone system in the next few months it will be a similar setup.
I was surprised, in the case of either ferry crossing that this service was not really advertised, though people were obviously quite naturally making use of it. I can only imagine the Ferry company gets a decent cut?
Edit: Have a look at this old article:
http://www.thedigitalship.com/DSmaga...04/geolink.txt