How and when you might connect your smartphone to a satellite

Today’s iPhones and Androids cannot communicate directly with satellites in space. Instead, they must connect to nearby cell towers on the ground.

But that may soon change.

A large range of companies – from tiny startups to some of the biggest corporations on Earth – are racing each other to connect regular smartphones directly to satellites. According to analyst Lluc Palerm of Northern Sky Research (NSR), this represents the largest opportunity in the history of the satellite communications industry, worth $66.8 billion over the next ten years. That’s almost double what should be generated by existing, standard satellite services over that period.

However, the phone-to-satellite market is still in its infancy. It’s also weighed down by significant technical challenges. But it’s the regulatory and business hurdles involved in mashing together the cellular and satellite industries that could be hardest to overcome.

“There’s a lot of complicated pieces,” agreed AST SpaceMobile Chief Strategy Officer Scott Wisniewski. AST SpaceMobile is one of the many companies playing in the sector.

Nonetheless, there is a distinct chance that, within the next 12-18 months, a large number of Americans will be able to send text messages from virtually anywhere in the US, from the jagged peaks of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains to the barren Badlands of South Dakota, as long as they have a an unobstructed view of the sky.

And, if rumors of the upcoming iPhone 14 are true, some Americans may be able to do that in just a few weeks.

Two paths to space

As noted by NSR’s Palerm, there are two basic ways that smartphones may connect to satellites. They’re either going to use spectrum intended for satellites, or spectrum intended for smartphones.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX, through its Starlink subsidiary, appears to be pursuing both paths simultaneously.

During his media event with T-Mobile’s Mike Sievert last week, Musk said Starlink plans to build satellites that will support transmissions in T-Mobile’s PCS spectrum. According to PhoneScoop, those transmissions will work in the G Block of PCS Band 25, which runs across 1910-1915MHz for uplinks and 1990-1995MHz for downlinks. That’s a licensed spectrum band intended for cellular communications, and it’s already supported in virtually all of T-Mobile’s existing phones.

Musk explained that Starlink’s planned second-generation satellites will be able to provide T-Mobile with 2-4Mbit/s capacity per sector. Starlink’s current sectors are about 15 square miles. Thus, T-Mobile initially only plans to support text messaging instead of high-bandwidth applications like voice calls and streaming video.

But that still could represent a huge opportunity if other network operators join T-Mobile in signing up for Starlink’s planned services. “What if they cover the globe with 20 different operator partnerships, offering text messages and limited email only? They could reach a billion customers and pull in ARPU [average revenues per user] of $1 per customer per month. A billion bucks per month? That’s a winner,” wrote analyst Joe Madden, with Mobile Experts, in a recent FierceWireless article.

However, Starlink’s plans with T-Mobile still require FCC approval. After all, the agency regulates traffic over airwaves in the US, and it would need to modify its rules to allow transmissions in the PCS G Block to go to space and not just nearby cell towers.

Starlink hopes to begin providing initial services for T-Mobile customers by the end of 2023.

But that’s not Starlink’s only gambit. The company is also asking for FCC permission to use a slice of the 2GHz spectrum band to “augment” its satellite services. Specifically, according to PCMag, the company hinted at “next-generation services for mobile users” stemming from its acquisition of Swarm Technologies last year.

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