Android one-ups Apple’s satellite SOS with general-purpose satellite SMS

Hey, all the users of the mobile operating system. Do you think the ability to connect to satellites is a bad thing? It's been a few months since the feature was introduced on the platform. There's a way to send satellite messages from a normal sized phone. Unlike on the iPhone, this is real, two-way, SMS-style texting that you'll supposedly be able to use for more casual conversations instead of the one-way questionnaire system that discourages sending a message.

This is the 25-year-old, 66-satellite network that powers traditional, purpose-built satellite phones. This will work with normal-sized phones and internal-only antennas. In most cases, you won't need a new antenna, according to the VP of Product Management of the company. Your phone already has an antenna for this since it's in the 1-2 GHz L Band.

It isn't saying that it won't work without new hardware, but that it will be built into its standard RF loadout. This situation is a lot better than the one where a big, extra, expensive antenna was added to your phone.

Just like with the iPhone, skipping out on the normal big, external antenna means dealing with a specific set of compromises. Unlike an always-on cellular connection, you'll fire up some targeting app and might be asked to point your phone at a location in the sky and wait for a connection. Voice calls, which are possible on Iridium with a traditional satellite phone, are out, and this is data-only. The connection uses the Iridium protocol, just like a real satellite phone. Grilli describes the communication as "closer to 2G [GSM or EDGE] than to 5G." It's an old-school TDMA (time-division multiple access) setup, where any one user talking to a specific antenna will monopolize that connection spectrum, and everyone else has to wait. (Keep in mind this "waiting" is an order of milliseconds, and satellites have multiple antennas.) FDMA (frequency division multiple access) is how all your other phone wireless technologies work. FDMA allows for higher-bandwidth and multiple simultaneous users, but that's difficult when you're talking about outer space communications.

Apple's solution seems to have better performance promises. According to Grilli, you'll be able to send a full-size text message in less than 10 seconds, and on average it takes three seconds. It takes 15 seconds for an emergency message to be sent on the iPhone. There are different characteristics to the Globalstar constellation. It's not good enough for Globalstar to have 24 satellites that cover the world. There's a constant up and down of the Globalstar service that lasts for minutes at a time for any given location. You don't need to hold your phone up to get a connection because there are 66 satellites in the Iridium constellation.

You will have to pay someone to access the network. They didn't want to get into the details of the app. Texts to the emergency number will be free, just like how cellular works. If you're paying for a premium plan, you can use any messaging standard you want, but operators will have to figure that out. Since only one person would need to pay for the satellite service, it would be a great standard.

The service will be available in phones in the second half of the year, according to the company. Satellite compatibility will be an add-on feature manufacturers need to plan for, but it sounds like hardware support starts in the chip. Several partners are working on designs For now, the feature is exclusive to flagship devices, but new, cheaper chips might also include it. The feature could be brought to cars.