The Global Mobile Satellite System (GMSS) consists of several

satellite phone A satellite telephone, satellite phone or satphone is a type of mobile phone that connects to other phones or the telephone network by radio through orbiting satellites instead of terrestrial cell sites, as cellphones do. The advantage of a sa ...

providers serving private customers. It can be compared to

PLMN In telecommunication, a public land mobile network (PLMN) is a combination of wireless communication services offered by a specific operator in a specific country.3GPP TS 21.905 https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_tr/121900_121999/121905/15.00.00_6 ...

( wireless telephony carriers) and

PSTN The public switched telephone network (PSTN) provides infrastructure and services for public telecommunication. The PSTN is the aggregate of the world's circuit-switched telephone networks that are operated by national, regional, or local teleph ...

(traditional wire-based telephony). As of 2008, ranges of numbers have been assigned to four GMSS carriers: *

Iridium Satellite LLC Iridium Communications Inc. (formerly Iridium Satellite LLC) is a publicly traded American company headquartered in McLean, Virginia. Iridium operates the Iridium satellite constellation, a system of 66 active satellites and 9 in-orbit spares us ...

Globalstar Globalstar, Inc. is an American satellite communications company that operates a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation for satellite phone and low-speed data communications. The Globalstar second-generation constellation consists of 24 lo ...

* Ellipso (a non-operational service, with no satellites launched) *

ICO Global Communications Pendrell Corporation (formerly NASDAQ:PCO, delisted Nov 2017) is an intellectual property (IP) investment, advisory services and asset management firm. The company develops and implements strategies to acquire, commercialize, manage, divest and li ...

In 1996, the

ITU The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Union ...

introduced

country code Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes (geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The term ...

+881 for direct international dialing of phones on GMSS providers. ( Inmarsat had already been allocated country code +870.) The next digit following the country code is allocated (two at a time) to a particular GMSS carrier:ITU-T SG2 NCT: E.164 country code 881 plus two 1-digit ICs
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Satellite numbers outside the GMSS country code

Inmarsat is a satellite-based communications provider, but it is primarily a maritime service and is not generally considered part of the GMSS.

usually allocates subscribers with a local number in the country they are based rather than using their GMSS country code.

Iridium Iridium is a chemical element with the symbol Ir and atomic number 77. A very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum group, it is considered the second-densest naturally occurring metal (after osmium) with a density o ...

also uses an Arizona-based access number to call Iridium phones for those unwilling or unable to call the usually expensive GMSS number directly.

Thuraya Thuraya ( ar, الثريا, Gulf Arabic pron.: ; from the Arabic name for the constellation of the Pleiades, ''Thurayya'') is a United Arab Emirates-based regional mobile-satellite service (MSS) provider. The company operates two geosynchronous ...

has been assigned +882-16, within the +882 range for International Networks.

References

{{Telecommunications Satellite telephony