BTW Handset was Hughes. Sorry.

yes - only to be used in satellite only areas, to stay in stealth mode

one thing puzzles me slightly - although switched to satellite only mode, it's picked up its location, so has searched all networks

Location of the handset is determined with either GPS (built into the handset) in Thuraya and Globalstar's case or triangulation (they use satellite arrays) in Iridium's case.

In either case there is no need to talk to ground level networks to correctly identify location.

thanks - proves my brain is slow - I read the other day it includes GPS, and had forgotten

The dealer said that all handsets have build-in GPS. So perhaps it does send signal to Thuraya about that handset location. So they can calculate in which country you are located. As they also charge according to, where from you are calling( I mean with regular Thuraya SIM cards).

Well, well just have to keep it a secret. ;)