Travelers who frequent remote locations just got an interesting new option for staying in touch while on the go. AT&T and TerreStar have teamed up to bring us a new phone called the Genus that will offer the ability to seamlessly transition off of AT&T’s 3G network and onto satellite service.
According to this story over at the Nat Geo Adventure blog, the Genus is a smartphone running Windows Mobile 6.5 (Which doesn’t make it all that “smart” at all! Ha!) that strongly resembles a Blackberry. It comes equipped with a physical keyboard, a 2.0 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, WiFi, and the ability to record both audio and video.
Those specs lag behind pretty much every other smartphone out there, except the Genus has that one trick up it’s sleeve in that it can jump to satellite service when necessary, which will probably be pretty often considering AT&T’s coverage. (Ha again!) You can even surf the web and send e-mails from the device, although Nat Geo says that it costs $5/megabyte, so go easy on the tweeting.
There is one rather large caveat to the Genus however. It seems that it only works in North America for now, which greatly reduces its usefulness for most people. They even go so far as to say that it works best in the U.S., and while cell coverage is far from universal here in the States, I have rarely ever wished for satellite service when I couldn’t use my cell.
Still, the phone represents a nice step forward in the satellite phone market. I’m sure we’ll soon see similar devices that offer better worldwide coverage, which will make them a real draw for adventure travelers. The Genus is available now for Government and Enterprise customers. Others will be able to get it later in the year at a price of $799.
Kraig is an outdoor and adventure travel writer based in Nashville, TN. Over the course of his career, he has contributed to numerous online and print outlets, including Popular Mechanics, Gear Junkie, Outside Online, National Geographic, Digital Trends, Business Insider, TripSavvy, about.com, and of course The Adventure Blog.
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Even funnier is that Terrestar just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. You can take dat to da bank! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-20/terrestar-sunset-village-upper-market-place-cynergy-data-bankruptcy.html
I read that after the I wrote the post as well. Chapter 11 doesn't mean they'll go away, but it certainly doesn't look great either.
Just when we start to think they've got this phone system figured out, we have another obstacle appear.
Reminds me of that Nat Geo phone they call the Travel Phone. It's not even quad band from memory. I thought that was hilarious at the time. And the unlimited free incoming calls from 70 countries didn't include Australia, Canada, Egypt or Argentina.
Yeah, but who lives in any of those countries Todd? 😉
I do! And I´m not going to buy that device!
Hi its really very nice blog,very useful information..Mobiles
For those interested, the TerreStar GENUS has launched. I had the opportunity to demo the device and I was pretty impressed by how lightweight it was. Satellite connectivity took about 90 seconds and the delay was hardly noticeable once connected and on a call. Haven't had to chance to use competitive devices, but from my bit of online research nothing is on the level of the GENUS with regard to it's GUI.
Check out http://us.bluestarinc.com/terrestar for more information.