Ericsson R290 satellite mobile cellular telephone

Ericsson R290 satellite mobile cellular telephone, the first dual-mode Globalstar satellite / GSM (2G) phone, made by Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, Sweden, c. 1999, together with battery charger and original packaging

Globalstar is a ‘constellation’ of low-Earth-orbit (LEO) communication satellites used for both speech and low-speed data communications inaugurated in 1998. The handsets used with the first generation Globalstar network were capable of being used as voice telephones on both the terrestrial GSM and satellite networks and for the transmission and reception of data. They were the first in the world with this dual GSM / data capability. This example was given to a senior member of the original Orbitel Electronics R&D team, based in the UK, which developed the handsets jointly with Qualcomm of California in the mid-1990s.