I wonder if anybody has looked at using transmission via Swarm.space M138 ,
https://swarm.space/swarm-m138-modem/
There is a kit available through sparkfun https://www.sparkfun.com/products/19236 $150
and it looks like its going to be fairly low cost annual subscription of $60/month with a tight coupling of 750messages per month. Since its satellite each message is fixed size of a respectable 192bytes, irrespective of how much actual data is in it. Typically messages are expected to be from remote device to the central “hive”, and there is a limited ACK capability.
The power requirements are pretty amazing at
Voltage 3.0-5.0V, with reference current at 3.3V
Sleep mode: 3.3 V, 80 uA (max)
Receive mode: 3.3 V, 26 mA (typ), 40 mA (max)
Transmit mode: 3.3V, 850 ma (typ), 1000 mA (max)
Getting the readings is via polling, and seems ubidots have a method.
https://help.ubidots.com/en/articles/5901749-plugins-connect-swarm-hive-with-ubidots