I made a call from the plane in 1999 or so. Notifying family about a delay... Probably wouldn't have done it except for the fact that that month's inflight magazine had an ad for first-time callers...I think it was $5 or so for a short call.

However, I wasn't under the impression that it was a satellite call. It was a domestic flight, probably a 757 (I'm guessing here), and it had the standard phones in the seatbacks. I assumed I was communicating via a surface network. Just seems hard to believe that they'd give me a satellite call for five bucks...or even the $10-20 it would have been at "regular" rates in 1999. Plus somewhere I thought I had seen fine print that the phones only worked overland (and perhaps specifically over U.S./Canada).

I assume today's widebodies have satellite capabilities, but I've never made a call using it.