Satellite phone networks question

[ffutures]

Can anyone give me the name of a satellite phone network that had coverage including the UK in the 1990s, and was accessible via privately-owned hand-held (or easily portable) phone? I'm guessing Inmarsat is the most likely, but the Wikipedia article is a bit ambiguous about this - it reads like their service may have only been accessible via larger installations aboard ships and planes.

No real details needed other than the name of the network! And possibly the maker's name for the phone, which would be a nice bit of scene setting.

Later - thanks to major_clanger  and cdybedahl I'm going to go with a Magnavox satellite phone (briefcase sized) in the Inmarsat network. Many thanks to everyone who commented.

Comments

[cdybedahl]

Does this help? https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24898/lot/607/

[ffutures]

That looks perfect for my needs - many thanks!

[julesjones]

Digging around the wikipedia general article on satellite telephony - the Iridium network?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellation

I think that's the one you're thinking of but there was also Globalstar.

I also have a vague memory of something involving the US degrading the publicly available GPS signal for security reasons, and giving up on it because a commercial satellite network went up.

[ffutures]

Iridium didn't have their network up and running until 1998, too late for my needs. Same for Globalstar. But thanks for the suggestions.

[major_clanger]

The table at the bottom of this link describes some early services. I dimly remember Inmarsat-M as being used as part of a portable, or at least luggable, mobile secure email system (terminal, crypto unit, router and laptop) by bits of the UK military in the late 1990s.

[ffutures]

Thanks, Inmarsat and the briefcase-sized terminal they mention sounds perfect.