One of the great innovations of the iPhone 14 introduced a few months ago was the ability to make calls without cell phone coverage. The secret was that they were made via satellite, not traditional mobile networks. Huawei has also started offering this option with the Mate 50, but be careful because although this option is limited for now, it will increase soon, says IEEE Spectrum.

Help. Apple introduced the satellite search option not as something that can be used normally, but as a feature for emergencies. The service is available for iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro, text messages can be sent to emergency services when there is no Wi-Fi or mobile coverage. The service is available in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, France and Ireland. And it works.

Huawei is ahead. In fact, just before Apple made this announcement, Huawei was introducing its new Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro device family, which also offered this option over China’s Beidou satellite network. As in the case of Apple, the option is limited: it only works in China, and for now you can only send and not receive messages.

long live the satellites. Companies like AST SpaceMobile or Lynk Global have begun building new low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite networks to offer alternative coverage to 5G networks. SpaceX, which wants to dominate the satellite internet market, also Study on this service and carriers like T-Mobile or AT&T intend to offer it.

iridium is back. Another hero in this segment is an old acquaintance: Iridium went into service at the end of 1998, but the business was too expensive, and a year later it declared technical bankruptcy. The network of 66 LEO satellites has been acquired by a group of private investors providing services to the US Department of Defense and Volodymyr Zelensky. The company will now bid for this new type of service.

Because right now? These services are starting to rise due to falling costs in the aerospace industry: small satellites are relatively affordable to manufacture and send to low Earth orbits (between 300 and 600 km altitude). And of course, much cheaper than it was twenty years ago.

Smartphones waiting. The radio chips in our smartphones are also better prepared to support this type of communication. They can transmit and receive at various wavelengths modulated by the software that manages the satellites, so they adapt to networks even when we move from one country to another.

hi are you there? One of the problems with these satellite communications is latency: today it can take about 10 minutes to establish a connection, and data from messages and future calls goes a long way to reach the satellites, then the sender and receiver. It is likely that we will experience minor delays in these messages.

Image: AST Mobil