Database/inter-switch issues still being worked on?
Paegas/RadioMobil, my local GSM network provider here in the Czech Republic recently put up a new roaming partner information page (http://dealers.radiomobil.cz/rise/plsql/ris_ie.ris_frame_enet?p_lang=en) that now includes a satellite option for coverage informations, prices, etc.
What is interesting of note is that if one selects satellite, and then selects Globalstar you will see that at the bottom of the screen it says: Globalstar covers following countries at present:
France, UK, Belgium, Luxembourg, Morocco, Spain, Azores, Portugal, Iceland, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Poland, Tunisia, Ireland, Andorra, Faeroe Islands, Gibraltar, Monaco and Mediterranean area.
This would indicate to me that Paegas/RadioMobil is "homed" on the France Globalstar Gateway, and Paegas/RadioMobil customers can take their GSM SIM chips and put them into a Globalstar handset and away you go -- but only in areas that are covered by the France Gateway.
It would seem one could infer from this that the various Globalstar Gateways are not capable of sharing "non-Globalstar subscriber" data between them. For example, if I went to the US, Mexico or Australia, etc and tried to use my GSM SIM chip in a Globalstar handset it would not work because that gateway would not know how to contact my home carrier or somehow contact the France gateway which would then contact my home carrier.
Perhaps this might explain why Vodafone customers in Australia are not able to roam elsewhere on the Globalstar network, whereas USA Globalstar homed customers are able to roam elsewhere.
I also might add there has been no mention of the Globalstar capability to Paegas customers here or elsewhere on the Paegas web page. I would venture to guess they are waiting until these inter-database access/sharing issues are resolved before announcing the service.
One last thing is you can see how much calls cost for Paegas customers roaming on Globalstar by clicking on the Call Destination Charges button. The exchange rate is around 40 Kc to the USD.
Geoff Goodfellow |
