Inflation does not spare satellite telephony services, to believe that the price of radio waves increases with the cost of transport ! Does this mean that the cost of the round trip of a radio wave toward Iridium satellites (about 2 x 780 km) is directly impacted by the increase in fuel prices ? Damned, I will have to be explained !
Still, the bad news has just reached us through our partner iTabNav.fr : Significant overall increase in Iridium subscription rates as of January 1 2023 affecting all resellers.
+ 20 %
This is overall the increase in the US pricing in dollars. And as the dollar is today, pretty much, at parity with the euro it is easy to conclude. Here is the information sent by iTabNav to all its subscribers of an Iridium subscription, past, current or upcoming :
We have just been informed of a significant increase in our Iridium feed-in tariffs from 1 January 2023. This increase is General and will affect all distributors. These new rates will be applicable to all active subscriptions over the period, even if they were acquired in advance. Indeed, we are billed by Iridium for periods actually used and not according to the date of purchase by our customers.
Thus :
- If you have prepaid for subscriptions intended to be activated even partially in 2023, You will have to pay a supplement in proportion to the period used in 2023. You are of course free to refuse this supplement and we will refund the prepaid months on request..
- If you are currently on stand-by and had planned to reactivate your subscription on 2023, The same rule will apply depending on the reactivation date.
- If you have an auto-renewing subscription, The new rate will be applied from January 1st on a pro-rata basis for the current month. A specific message will be sent to you for your agreement.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused by this situation.. We remain committed to bringing you the best possible service, with the most flexibility, at the best price. As mentioned above, this increase will affect all Iridium distributors.
This is very unfortunate for offshore sailors whose main use of satellite telephony is to request GRIB weather files and graphic weather maps, therefore the safety of their navigation !
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to believe that everything goes through Ukraine, by Total or by road.