#satellitecomms

According to Iridium, the companies developed and demonstrated the technology, but it appears that smartphone makers have not implemented the feature in their Snapdragon-based devices. Iridium said Qualcomm therefore notified it on November 3 of the decision to terminate things, effective December 3.

Qualcomm told The Register: “Smartphone OEMs have indicated a preference towards standards-based solutions for satellite connectivity in mobile devices. We expect to continue to collaborate with Iridium on standards-based solutions, while discontinuing efforts on the proprietary solution that was introduced earlier this year (2023).

It could partly be due to pretty expensive rates that would be charged by Iridium, or the developments around just placing normal cell tower radios on low orbiting satellites (like the recent post about Starlink’s tests). It looks more like the leaning is towards unmodified cellphones being able to be used.

A good reason for this is open competition, as the device is not locked into a specific chipmaker or satellite service. Competition means more choices (no vendor lock-in) and lower costs.

For consumers, it means there is a chance too that existing phones can be used without expensive (and exclusive) upgrades being required.

This is quite an interesting animation which really highlights very well how good the Starlink satellite coverage is. Even for continents like Africa there is pretty good coverage, and over the vast oceans as well.

You can change the view to see GPS satellites and then you notice they are a lot higher altitude than Starlink’s satellites. If normal mobile phones could start to use these low orbiting satellites, we’d really be able to connect all humans on Earth, and have coverage during disasters, or treks out into the uninhabited areas.

As long, of course, as you can trust the provider of the satellite service, whether it be an individual billionaire or a spy-happy nation state. This brings a whole new era in being able to data mine what passes through (or even under) this network.

Spotted this piece of news on Mastodon from @[email protected]

See https://satellitemap.space/

“I think [satellite connectivity] is going to start coming in as a feature in the high end and then become just a default feature for flagship phones,” he said. “It’s relatively easy to take our chip [the MT6825 found inside the Motorola Defy] and add it to any 4G or 5G phone. It will be integrated into 5G modems going forward, kind of a default feature.”

It’s an exciting picture of a future where you aren’t entirely reliant on connectivity provided by your carrier or Wi-Fi network, and it could end up saving lives in emergency situations. While direct integration of satellite communication is still in its infancy, the service is available to anyone right now through the Motorola Defy and the Bullitt Messenger Service. The Motorola Defy is a palm-sized rugged dongle with MediaTek’s MT6825NTN chip inside. It connects to your phone using Bluetooth, talks to the satellite network, and is ready to send messages through Bullitt’s app when you don’t have any service.

The linked article goes into some detail about the hands-on testing with this device. It will work with any smartphone, and just requires the Bullitt Messenger app to use the Defy dongle (and your recipients need to have the app installed to receive messages for free [yes payment too if they want to reply]). The downside is you do need to carry this dongle with you. That said, it is a once-off purchase that includes the one year of the Essential plan (Up to 30 satellite messages per month with emergency SOS included) which is $5 pm after that and is actually quite reasonable. Receiving messages via the satellite service though is free of charge.

Being a separate dongle device, I’d imagine you can also share the use of it with a spouse or friend. The only bad news really is the satellite coverage for now is still only the USA and Europe. But it looks like from Q4 2023 that South America, Africa and also the Oceania region (and Japan) will get coverage.

For the next year or two at least, it will only be some of the flagship phones that get satellite comms built in, so a device like this may be perfect for the millions of mid-range smartphone users. Hopefully too, an increasing volume in usage, will make pricing even better over time.

AST SpaceMobile claims it is building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network accessible by standard smartphones.

They plan to deliver a global cellular network from space. In a briefing early last year, the company told investors that its network would eventually consist of 168 satellites.

The key differentiator for AST SpaceMobile currently is that the company has facilitated a low-earth satellite connection without needing special software, ground terminals or hardware.

What’s important with this approach is that the change is on the satellite side so that ordinary phones could be used. The Qualcomm chip approach required extra chips in the phone to communicate via the Inmarsat and other satellite networks, which are pretty costly to use.

I’d imagine that access would be like roaming another network, with that network’s cellular rates applying when it is used.