Inmarsat is indicating a significant rate increase for its Inmarsat Global Satellite Phone Services (GSPS) and its Inmarsat FleetBroadband (FBB) service; some hardware prices are also expected to rise sharply. The rate increase is expected to happen between May and July of 2012. Some blogs have speculated that the price increase is related to the new Inmarsat Global Xpress service expected sometime around 2014.

Though the (expected) large FBB rate increase is surprising to us, the Inmarsat GSPS price increase was expected. Right now, our typical monthly fees to end users are under $15 per month for most plans -- which is common in the marketplace. When Inmarsat launched the IsatPhone PRO in mid-2010, it deliberately priced it low to make rapid inroads into the market share of its competitor Iridium. Now with the IsatPhone PRO and other GSPS products proven to be effective, Inmarsat appears to be increasing the pricing to be more comparable to the Iridium service costs.

Inmarsat GSPS hardware is also going up.