6 Have phone, will travel: Inmarsat services 6.1 Background The use of satellite phones has become an integral part of newsgathering, not only for the broadcast mar- ket, but also for the newspaper industry. The term `satellite phone' encompasses devices not only used for voice communications, but also for data. The name denotes a device which is essentially portable and offers `dial-on-demand' access, with no pre-booking of satellite capacity as is generally found with con- ventional satellite communication systems. A number of systems are currently available ­ Inmarsat, Thuraya, Iridium and Globalstar ­ but some offer only voice communications, and Thuraya is a data only