You can spend a little or you can spend a lot. The price/service runs from $249/$39 per month for the Delorme InReach which will track you and provide two way text messaging, the Iridium Go (To be released in May) ~$699/~$150 a month for text, voice, and text based email, GlobalStar $499 with prepaid calling plan cards, on up to Iridium around $899 for a refurbished phone. Since I got the InReach, I haven't turned on the GlobalStar phone. The telephone replaced the telegraph and now text messaging is starting to replace the phone in many applications. Tom