Iridium Introduces AxcessPoint, WiFi Internet Access Anywhere

In this increasingly connected world we live in it has become more and more important to stay in contact no matter where we go. Over the years, cell service has improved (and even reached Everest!) and mobile Internet is now a possibility in more places. Still, there are remote sections of the globe where communications remains a challenge and the only option remains satellite service from companies like Iridium.

Now, the company is introducing a new product dubbed AxcessPoint, which will offer WiFi Internet access while in those remote place, albeit at speeds that are far from broadband. The new device, which connects to your existing Iridium satellite phone, is about the size of a deck of cards and costs $200. When activated, it turns into a mobile hotspot, offering blazing speeds of up to 28Kbps.

Yes, you read that right. This will be the equivalent of dial-up speeds from the early 90's and will come at a price. The service will cost $1 per minute, so you'd better make your time online count. Of course, while that sounds slow and expensive, when you consider that you can use it at the North and South Pole or at in the middle of the Indian Ocean, you start to see how this product could be useful.

28Kbps is agonizingly slow by todays standards, but with a little patience, you can still get quite a bit done. Those speeds should be just fine for sending back a few tweets for example or even uploading a blog post, provided you don't include a lot of images. Doing anything with video is probably completely out of the question, but e-mailing, light web browsing, and similar activities should work quite well.

The AxcessPoint is compact, lightweight, and relatively inexpensive, which should make it an attractive offering for those heading out into the field. Read more about it in this story from Gizmodo.