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In fact, in addition to complaining that the iPhone 14 is “Thirteen Fragrance S”, a feature added to the new iPhone this time may have a huge impact on the future communications industry.
In iPhone 14, the satellite communication function has been added, and users in applicable areas will be able to transmit signals and text messages through satellite when using Emergency SOS. And this feature has been rumored before the announcement of the previous generation of iPhone, and now it is finally confirmed.
Last night, in addition to fruit fans, the investors who paid the most attention to the conference were probably Globalstar investors. The company was previously rumored to be working with Apple on satellite communications capabilities. Like last year, the company’s shares hit highs ahead of Apple’s event. Before this year’s launch, Globalstart’s stock price rose as much as 42%!
Just two days before the Apple conference, at the Huawei Mate new product launch conference, it had already “cut off Hu” in advance, exposing the satellite-to-mobile phone function that “pierces the sky”.
Why do car companies like Apple, Huawei, Google, and even Geely all want to bring the “satellite direct connection” function to their mobile phones? And what change will this bring?
Emergency SOS function | Image source: Apple conference
01 When “Skynet” matures
Why is it now that mobile phone manufacturers are all rushing to “satellites”?
From the perspective of the history of satellite communication, the ability of mobile phones to directly connect to satellites also appeared after the increase of low-orbit satellites (LEO: Low Earth Orbit) in recent years. On the other hand, the terminal modules of satellite communication, such as miniature antennas and chips, are also mature. For mobile phone manufacturers, they only need to make them smaller and integrate them into mobile phones.
High-orbit satellites are located in geostationary orbits, more than 30,000 kilometers from the surface. The low-orbit satellites are located in the area within 2000 kilometers. A satellite with a high orbit can cover a larger area, while a low-orbit satellite has a short transmission delay and a small path loss, which is more conducive to communication.
Starlink is a typical low-orbit satellite, and it also continuously adjusts its orbital altitude, from more than 1,000 kilometers before to more than 500 kilometers. Low-orbit satellites cover a smaller area, so a larger number of satellites need to be launched to form a communication network. This can also explain why the current launch of low-orbit satellites and the establishment of “satellite Internet” have always been an important part of the strategic layout of satellite companies.
As a representative of the “low-orbit satellite constellation”, when SpaceX’s Starlink announced its cooperation with T-Moblie at the end of August, there was a view that the choice to announce at this point in time was to compete with Apple’s upcoming new features .
Unlike Apple, which updates software and components on phones, T-Mobile and SpaceX are taking the approach of making satellites “compatible” with phones.
Musk revealed that the second-generation Starrlink will have a large antenna with a diameter of 5 to 6 meters, which can transmit the frequency band that mobile phones can receive. Information will be sent over the PCS frequency band that T-Mobile has rights to use.
Of course, this service also provides mainly text transmission with limited bandwidth. In the covered area, within each area, the information bandwidth is 2~4 Mbit/s signal. Swiping the video screen is not enough, but it can support users in the United States to send text messages and make calls in places where the network was disconnected before.
Image source: Huawei
On the other hand, the “direct satellites” of Huawei mobile phones are provided by the Beidou satellite system.
The Beidou system is mainly composed of satellites in medium and high orbits, of which the largest satellite is Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites between low and high orbits. The orbital altitude of these satellites is around 21500km.
In addition to providing well-known services such as GPS positioning and dedicated satellite communication, this system can also support the “short message communication” released by Huawei this time. The bandwidth of a single transmission can have 40 Chinese characters. But the function is limited, only supports sending, not receiving. Globalstar’s T-mobile satellite network can support receiving and sending.
02 Mobile phone + satellite = change the future?
Globalstar, which is now in the spotlight again because of Apple, is the previous generation of satellite Internet at the same time as the Iridium satellite constellation. In the last round of development, it was neither like the Iridium project, which was “salvaged” by the US Department of Defense after bankruptcy, nor did it gain a firm foothold in the wider communications field like other satellite operators.
Cooperating with Apple also means that it has found its next big customer.
According to the company’s latest announcement, Globalstar provides 85 percent of its satellite network capacity to Apple. Globalstar expects revenue in the range of $185 million to $230 million in 2023, depending in part on how well the company achieves goals related to the Apple deal. Apple currently provides $450 million to support its infrastructure.
Communication Satellite｜Image Source: Globalstar
Iridium Internet, which was born in the glory days of Motorola, started in 1987 and was put into use in 1998. However, due to the high cost and low utilization of satellite phones, it soon went bankrupt and reorganized in 2000. After the company’s business adjustment, it mainly provides communication services for the U.S. military, as well as applications in fields such as navigation and scientific investigation.
Around the same time, Globalstar also went through bankruptcy and reorganization in 2002. Globalstar was invested by Qualcomm and was conceived in 1991. The design of the entire Globalstar system is to use low-orbit satellites to form a satellite system to cover the world and support communications.
For communication satellites, the frequency resources used for work must be applied to the Radio Communication Department of the International Telecommunication Union. Globalstar received a US spectrum allocation from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1995. Licenses from a range of other national jurisdictions have since been obtained. The frequency band used by its communication system is between 1.6 GHz and 2.4 GHz.
In addition to traditional rescue and exploration, for communication satellites, it is still unclear where the growth point of the next application will be. When the giants began to go off to make applications one after another, the communication satellite companies also became excited. The founder of a US satellite company tweeted: Musk and T-Mobile brought the world’s attention to the huge market opportunity for cellphone-space communications.
It is worth noting that, although functionally, Apple and T-Mobile provide “mobile phone direct-to-satellite” is not much different, the current model is different. The former is a new feature embedded in the phone, while the latter is a new service provided by the operator. Apple’s cooperation with Globalstar is to integrate new modules into mobile phones and use the services of mature networks.
The cooperation between SpaceX and T-Mobile means that from the design and launch of satellites, it is necessary to adapt to the existing network frequency bands of mobile phones on the market. Lan Lanyi, founder of Qianyu Sky Consulting Co., Ltd., said that it is currently in the early stage of popularization of this function. It remains to be seen which of the two models is better and how the business model will be developed.
In the communication frequency band, SpaceX also started a head-to-head contest. The latest news shows that SpaceX has submitted an application for the 1.6-2.4GHZ communication frequency band to the FCC on September 6. Overlapping with Globalstar’s existing frequency bands.
What are the possible impacts of satellite direct connection to mobile phones? If only from the current function, it does not provide much imagination. After all, the scene of emergency rescue is too accidental and low-frequency.
However, Blue Sky Wing believes that for the field of communication satellites, this is indeed a new opportunity: the last time the C-end market of the satellite industry broke out was the introduction of GPS navigation into mobile phones, which brought about a reduction in the cost of GPS positioning and the popularization of application scenarios. and rich.
Currently, the shortcoming of satellite communication services is the high cost. And this is related to its slow industrial cycle and insufficient competition. Compared with the fierce competition of terrestrial communications, “the satellite industry is relatively conservative, and it is a system that has been growing in a greenhouse-like environment.”
Starlink Satellite | Image source: Starlink
If you look at a longer time scale, satellite communication will not replace the communication base station on the ground. The two will be superimposed and complementary. For example, the cost of establishing base stations in remote areas and high-altitude areas is too high and the frequency of use is low, and the satellite communication solution is more advantageous. At present, some aircraft flights have begun to provide Wi-Fi, some of which are provided by ground base stations, and some are provided by satellite communications.
If the era of satellite communication is really developed, the experience of a mobile phone user will be a more continuous and ubiquitous Internet. “A seamless network that can be switched in multiple scenarios, but this network is fast and slow.”
For ordinary users, the signal of the new iPhone may still be inferior to some Android machines; but the good news is that if you really have a particularly poor signal but in an emergency, your chances of survival may be improved.