[GOTFIVEONIT]

plus i think the people on the ship are from the 'dharma initiative' or some type of military personell. when john locke set off the signal 'in case hostiles have taken over' in that station the russian guy was working out of it, on that computer.

i also think military too, because sattelite phones are not cheap. just to buy a sat phone, costs around $800, plus the charges per minute are very expensive, like $2 per minute. thats something they did not mention on the show.

sattelite phones are also rented out or leased out, usually to shipping companies stuck in the wide open oceans where there are no cell towers around at all. they are also used in desert explorations, and other remote regions of the earth. not to mention disaster zones, especially in foreign countries. or like when hurricane katrina hit new orleans knocking out all types of communications, then sat phones are used, which are directly linked to a sattelite in space, vs your cell phone which relies on radio communications through cell towers which go back the phone company that uses giant sattelite dishes for its communications. in fact two years ago, solar flares hitting sattelites in space, knocked out cell phone communications in california.