1. BGAN is by far the most powerful SAT solution with highest reliability, and likely highest cost, but you get up to 240/384kbps (send/receive) and telephone. Connections are USB, Bluetooth, Ethernet so it’s supper cool, esp for those real outback moments.

2. Wikipedia in English only shows:
Kenya having 12.75 million subscribers in total, or a 34% penetration rate as of December 2007
A. Safaricom [74] GSM
B. Zain – Part of One Network GSM
C. Telkom Wireless CdmaOne
Could not find a fourth.

Also very interesting from wikipedia.com is:

Flashback service

As a result of the limited income of most of Safaricom’s customers, network congestion emerges from a practice called ‘flashing’. Flashing is the practice of calling another mobile user, but disconnecting before the connected call is answered. It provides a method for mobile users to alert someone that they wish to be called, but either can’t, or won’t, pay for the call. The method is cost-free for the users; but costly in network bandwidth.

That is why Safaricom sometime ago introduced a flashback service that gave every subscriber 5 free SMS messages with a single pre-defined message stating “Please call me. Thank you”. Although the messages can be annoying when sent just for fun they are very useful when one is in trouble and has no airtime. It also gives parents more of a reason to get mobile phone for their children without the real need for getting them airtime. Unfortanately, at this time, the flashbacks can only be sent to Safaricom subscribers due to some feuds with Zain, Safaricom’s main competitor.

Electronic cash service

Safaricom has developed and launched nationwide an mobile banking service called M-PESA, that allows Kenyans to transfer money via SMS.[1] The service does not require users to have bank accounts, an important aspect in a country like Kenya, where many people do not have bank accounts. With M-PESA, the user can buy digital funds at any M-PESA agent and send that electric cash to any other mobile phone user in Kenya, who can then redeem it for conventional cash at any agent. This system is remotely comparable to hawala banking or services like Western Union. An M-PESA enabled mobile phone can also function as an electronic wallet and can hold up to 50,000 Kenyan shilling.[2] Safaricom stakeholder Vodafone, which partnered in the development of M-PESA, has announced that it intends to roll out M-PESA internationally as well.

One of the more interesting problems is non-necessary traffic, and “noise” from just connecting your laptop to the internet. You need finer control over this issue, your going to need some kind of outbound IP traffic filter.

How is the shortwave radio working out?