Satellite phones aren’t new, but moving satellite communications into regular smartphones is a new direction for the industry. The biggest movement to date was Apple’s introduction of its emergency satellite SOS feature on the iPhone 14 in 2022, but solutions have been in development from a number of players for a number of years.
Snapdragon Satellite is setting up to be one of the major services for Android devices, with an interesting solution to keep phones connected wherever you happen to be.
What advantage does satellite communication bring?
Satellite communication is designed enable connectivity when a device is beyond the reach of the normal cellular network. While cities and urban areas are flooded with cellular connectivity, once you get out into the wilds, you might find that you never have a connection on a regular smartphone.
Qualcomm
That’s something likely to be experienced by those working offshore or off the beaten track in the great outdoors, and while there are various solutions already available – such as Garmin’s InReach for example – moving some degree of connectivity into regular smartphones will mean that emergency SOS services and satellite messaging will become a lot more accessible to a lot more people.
The plan is to support an emergency system, so you could, for example, alert the coast guard if you’re lost at sea, or mountain rescue if you have an accident when out climbing, for example. But early plans for satellite communication goes further, including SMS messaging systems, so you can contact loved ones or the keep in touch with the office.
How does Snapdragon Satellite work?
Snapdragon Satellite works in a similar way to Apple’s Emergency SOS feature, in that you need to have a clear view of the sky. Using the app on the phone, you’ll be directed to point your phone in the right direction to get connected to a satellite.
Qualcomm
Once connected, you’ll be able to use services such as contacting emergency services, and in the future, two-way SMS messaging.
For the user, it’s as simple as that: if you don’t have cellular data or Wi-Fi, you’ll open up the app, find the satellites and be able to send messages.
Unlike satellite phones with bulky exterior antenna, Snapdragon Satellite uses internal antenna, which is why it needs to be precisely aimed towards the sky to get the connection needed.
How will messaging work on Snapdragon Satellite?
Outside of some sort of emergency SOS system, the regular two-way messaging is still something of an unknown. This is still something that’s in development and its might be the OEMs that provide the service – to give an USP when buying a device – it might be Android that supports some kind of system to give the ecosystem a boost – or it may indeed be a third-party solution.
It’s likely that you’ll use a bespoke satellite messaging app. After establishing a connection with the satellite you’ll open a session, so the phone will actively try to maintain that connection to allow you to send your message. It will then be on receive, with a notification via the paging channel to alert you to any reply, so you can download the message.
Messages should only take seconds to send, and when the recipient receives a satellite message this will be via the same app – and if they don’t have it they will be prompted to download it.
Of course you can’t always be connected to the satellites, so when you don’t have an active session, there will be no notifications – you’d have to connect and check to see if you’d received a message, so it’s going to be a more manual process than regular cellular messaging.
What satellite network will Snapdragon Satellite use?
Snapdragon Satellite uses the Iridium network. This is a network of low-Earth orbital satellites, with 66 satellites travelling at 17,000mph across the sky. Iridium has around 2 million users currently but with Snapdragon Satellite it is expecting to see the number of users quickly expand to around 40 million.
In addition to the 66 satellites in the system, there are nine spare satellites in orbit, ready to come into play if there’s a problem. Qualcomm emphasised that Iridium was chosen as a partner because it’s an established player already. Iridium uses proprietary spectrum, so this isn’t part of the 3GPP NTN standard. That means that Qualcomm can get the system up and running with immediate effect, without having to wait for any development of the new 3GPP standards,
Is there anywhere that Snapdragon Satellite won’t be available?
Iridium provides global coverage, but there’s an embargo on some territories. Qualcomm will comply with the same restrictions that apply to Iridium, so Snapdragon Satellite won’t be available in Afghanistan, China, Cuba, India, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Sudan.
What phones will be able to support Snapdragon Satellite?
Qualcomm plans to have Snapdragon Satellite available in top-tier devices initially, so that’s likely to be Snapdragon 8, but has confirmed that it will then move to lower tiers of hardware too. In reality, there aren’t huge hardware changes needed, it’s mostly modifications to the filters to ensure that it supports the Iridium band.
Qualcomm confirmed in a roundtable at Mobile World Congress 2023, that four OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) have already passed the first stages, so have prototype devices that are working – and proving that the service can be made available in a smartphone device.
OEM partners working on Snapdragon Satellite solutions include Honor, Motorola, Nothing, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi.
When can we expect to see Snapdragon Satellite devices launch?
The current timeline for the launch of devices that will work with Snapdragon Satellite is for launch in early H2 2023 – so that might be around July or August.