Retail AT&T satellite phone on sale

[densoo]

Talk and web during flight. Expensive and have to be on south side, but it's here. Won't be surprised if there's an inflight incident within a few weeks.

NEW YORK — AT&T Inc. has weathered plenty of complaints about spotty cell phone coverage. On Tuesday, it began selling its first phone that includes a backstop for AT&T's own network, over a satellite. That means blanket coverage of the U.S., even in the wilderness or hundreds of miles offshore.

It can send and receive data over the satellite, which means it can be used for e-mail and Web surfing. The cost, like the satellite, is sky-high: $5 per megabyte, or 400 times more expensive than a standard $25-per-month terrestrial data plan. Text messages, by comparison, are a bargain. They're 40 cents each, only four times the piece rate for cell phones.