Apple doesn't mention any additional payment necessary for this feature. But clearly GlobalStar is being compensated heavily by Apple to allocate 85% of their capacity to them. So my question is, who flips the bill? Is Apple paying out of the goodness of their hearts (more realistically as a loss leader to sell more iPhones), or is Apple forcing the carriers like AT&T and Verizon to kick-back a portion of the monthly bill (maybe $1-$2 per user) to GlobalStar for coverage.
I suspect it is the latter, which is why we only see this feature available in select markets. Those are probably the markets where Apple has required all its iPhone carriers to agree to this payment.
Somehow GlobalStar gets paid and its not coming from the end-users (not directly at least).