> I had a GEO satphone myself (Thuraya which is really cheap for airtime in Europe) before but as I hike through the mountains it's very hard to get a line of sight. So I didn't deem it useful enough for emergency.

Yeah, the iSatPhone2 is fairly forgiving on line of sight as long as you aren’t in a canyon or hiking up the north face of a mountain. Given they are in geosynchronous orbit, targeting is much easier (just point antenna south). My iridium I had back in the late 00’s was a PITA to get signal on a hike where we had to call for an air ambulance for emergency evac.

I see, the Thuraya had a bit of a hard time because it has only 1 sat covering Europe and it's all the way over Saudi Arabia. So it's not only up a long way but also quite far away geographically. I guess this is why it's so cheap in Europe (2 years airtime - not including calls - was about 40 euro IIRC, whereas with Iridium you would pay more than that every month!)

So it was a bit tricky to reach the sat especially in hilly or built up areas.