what sort of phone do you use

i do a fare bit of driving in the remote outback and i was woundering what sort of phone/ net work people use any help?

I use a Nokia E51, I have a full Nokia carkit aswell.

Running a small antenna on the back window as I had a big antenna before which was awesome but a pain around town.

Only really loose coverage in really mountain terrain.

I am with Optus and the phone I got from a Telstra shop.

I contract to Telstra and I prefer not to deal with them outside of work time.

Dave.

Apple Iphone....will never go to another phone again. Wouldn't recommend it for the outback though, shame about the Optus coverage and service up my way. They just had the cheapest deal which suited me at the time.

Had 3 Sony Ericcson's before this and they were a very reliable phone.

I run one of those Blue Ant hands free kits that clips to the visor. Does the job well.

Guido

Although it may not be considered remote out back I travel across the Nullabor twice a year and have found mobile reception to be fairly average, as would be expected in such an open area.
The crappy old LG phone on Telstra 3G works better than my old Nokia on 2G in towns like Eucla and an external aerial really only meant reception came back 20 mins earlier than not having one. East of Ceduna and west of Norseman reception is patchy on both 2G and 3G but there is plenty of areas with some form of reception.
I can't comment on other carriers out there but when the wife was looking for a new phone last month the local Optus shop claimed they have better coverage across that area than Telstra has ever had and drop outs would rarely occur. That sounded to me like a sales person who doesn't realise just how big the country really is so Optus didn't get a sale.
This year we are borrowing a Sat phone and taking that to use in emergency situations. I have been told Sat phones don't work in the middle of Australia which is why I haven't out laid the cash to buy one yet so this trip will be the test.
I figure although the bird sending the signal might be different to the one that sends the GPS signal it can't be far off and I only ever lose GPS signal momentarily on the Nullabor trip. Guess I'll find out one way or another in a few months.

I use a HTC Touch Pro HD as a phone, Sat Nav and PDA all in one.

Excellent phone, decent 5Mp camera, price tag made the eyes pop but you only live once!

When there's no cell available, as it's a 3G phone, it goes absolutely birko trying to get a service and promptly deadens the battery in its attempts to reconnect to the network. Thankfully it has a mode where the phone can be turned off independently of bluetooth, WiFi and the GPS.

I've looked at satellite phones. If I had a rural address I might go for one, but without the subsidy, they're just stupidly priced. What I'd really prefer (given a rural address) is a satellite internet connection and VOIP phone. Shove that in the 'van and then I could google the restaurant's phone number just south of Broome as I head across the top end and book a table for me and the missus!

Cheers
Tony

i have a nokia n97, it's a good phone but probably not good for outback stuff. it wouldn't like the dust.

previous phone was a nokia 6110 navigator and it was a great phone never stuffed up.

hey guys,

I've got a Telstra T165i (ZTE) company phone for my main phone. We decided on these as we need to have reception 24/7 and even though were not remote by any means, it's amazing how many other little black spots appeared with other phones. These have been an amazing work phone, I've lost mine off the dash of a vehicle at 60km and it still works fine. I'll definately be buying one if I ever leave this company.

I've also just bought Palm Treo Pro as a personal browsing phone as it was the only resonably priced touch screen phone I could find that was recomended for rural area's and I'm very happy with it so far.

cheers,
James.

HTC Touch Diamond on Optus.

GPS in built as a backup.

I have the ZTE T165i on telstra,works well,great coverage,heard some bad reviews but no probs with mine.Two weeks ago i dropped it on a driveway and didn't notice untill the back wheel of a truck was going over the bottom section of the phone.The sim card doesn't work anymore so i got a new sim,the phone still works fine.
I go up the snow alot in the winter,hike a bit,the battery did fail in it from the cold so i put it in a pocket close to my body and it fired up again.

Check out Pivotel, I'm on the globalstar network which isn't the best at the moment(satellites need replacing)but it will improve soon. They also have iridiums for $999, but I havent read the fine print.
My old R190 sat phone worked fine in the remotest deserts.