I had an E587 for years
Eventually it didn’t get used because the roaming contracts made shopping for local SIMs (always the high point of any trip to Croatia or Greece 
) irrelevant.
Unfortunately these need a SIM card which is yet another thing to keep going. One way or another (PAYG or contract) this is a big hassle. I am paying £9/month for a Voda contract SIM in my tablet, which also acts as a backup for my phone (£15/month). PAYG expires after 90 days (on most UK cellulars, with a few exceptions*) and has become a total hassle.
* Deals like the old Virgin Mobile PAYG SIM which topped off automatically via a direct debit, and de facto never expired, still work, but Virgin shafted their users by blocking data on them, so they work only for voice and sms.
Those mobile/wifi hotspots have their own internal batteries (at least any of the ones I’ve had – due to the Isle of Man not being in the EU, we have to pay eye watering roaming charges for data in Europe (including the UK) and my solution for years was to carry a mobile hotspot with a local EU sim in it. These days I just use the Android phone I use for Skydemon, with a UK vodafone SIM in it. With Brexit, I’ll probably have to go back to carrying multiple SIMs or a hotspot, grr)
If you just need to signal an emergency, then a PLB would be the best solution I reckon.
If you just want to be able to talk in a non-emergency, and have a drone already (say, for photography), then lofting a hotspot up a couple of hundred m is probably not such an awful idea.
@malibuflyer i accept your approach of yes and no in general ! 
@AviatioKosmos sure, if it’s only about exactly answering the two original questions, then:
Yes, in some situations such a drone solution might solve the problem
No, such a solution does not exist because it doesn’t make any sense
@dublinpilot clearly asks for a drone solution on his initial post
Iridium is expensive in every way. Thuraya is the way to go for a “cheap” satellite phone and, for simple voice stuff, is reliable enough.
Funny thing is, I’ve just had a look on Ebay, and can’t see a single 7100 or 7101. So many thousands were sold. I had a couple (was using them for testing something I was working on) and sold them to someone here. There were going for 300 quid. Made by Hughes in the US so a solid bit of kit
unlike the later Thuraya phones which were chinese made and “variable”.
I reckon Ebay is no longer regarded as a place to effectively sell used items. People stick their used stuff on facebook, somewhere, anywhere, everywhere, usually some forum mod deletes it, but hey it is free
I compared the pricing to a satphone, with a phone subscription, e.g. Iridium 9555 which goes for around 820 GBP and who knows about the subscription.
The Garmin InReach is a sat-thing, but not a satphone
Dimme wrote:
This device is a gazillion times cheaper than a satphone.
Let’s check what a gazillion is.
Such a broadband Wifi-Router is about 50EUR (if you buy it new and not “unlocked” from a questionable source used). Then you need a Powerbank to run it – Let’s say another 20EUR for a cheap one. A drone that is kind of reliable and able to carry the weight of the gateway and the power bank should be in the ballpark of 300 EUR – you should be kinda ok with that but only kinda as we were talking about mountainous terrain where we tend to have significant turbulences. Drones strong enough to handle these turbulences are much more expensive. But anyways. Let’s add 30 EUR for a backpack that carries all of this stuff and we have 400EUR for the “drone solution”. Works when a couple of more meters antenna height do the trick but even in the Alps there are certainly some remote spots where you still do not have any signal.
Now let’s compare with Garmin InReach: Initial price is 299, so you save 100 EUR at purchase.
But obviously you need a subscription. Cheaper one (perfectly fine for calling help) is 14.99 per month. Works globally. Now it’s getting a little tricky: A GSM-Plan that really works globally is also expensive but if you only hike in the Alps you don’t need it. Let’s assume the GSM-subscription you need for the gateway is 5EUR/month. So the Sat-Plan is 10EUR/Month more.
Obviously the solutions have significant differences: With the InReach you can only send text messages while with the Gateway you can theoretically do voice (over WLAN) calls. Depending on your subscription, however, these calls can be extremely costly as Data-Roaming even within the Alp-Countries still can be expensive. So it’s hard to compare.
Total cost over 3 years for in reach is 839 EUR. Total cost for the Drone-Gateway is 580 EUR.
So we now have shown that “a gazillion” equals 1,45. Not that impressive. For that “gazillion times”, however, you get a 100gr water proof device that fits almost every pocket rather than having to carry an extra backpack around with lots of stuff. Not to mention that with the InReach solution you only have to charge one battery instead of at least 3 (drone, remote controller and gateway).
Long story short: Although such a self made flying gsm/wifi gateway might be a great gadget, for the purpose of calling help in case of emergency in remote locations there are much better solutions at a comparable price.
Carry a PLB?
This device is a gazillion times cheaper than a satphone. If you really want you can still make cellular phone calls over WiFi e.g. by setting up a gateway at home using Asterisk or even buying such a service from e.g. Skype or any of the myriad of SIP VoIP providers out there.
For emergencies you should really have a portable VHF radio that you can use to call an airliner on 121.5, unless you’re flying in Antarctica in which case nobody will come to save anyways.
