FWIW a few years back when I was flying for AAI in Malaysia, we had a 747 lose an engine in the cruise over Bangladesh, I think. The aeroplane was going from Hong Kong to Dubai I think, not important though.
The captain decided to divert to the company base in KL, and managed to explain well enough to the local ATC what he wanted to do, but couldn't get them to understand the need for them to pass the message of the diversion on to the company.
The F.O. managed to get an SMS away at 35,000' when his mobile phone briefly picked up a signal. It wasn't a reliable signal though.