iPhone 18 Pro Rumored to Support Full 5G Satellite Internet

[svish]

Nice if possible. However such features will not be available in many countries and that too international expansion might be at least few years away.

 

[germanbeer007]

Well if it wasn't Starlink in the first place, no problem.

The hypothetical assumes it's Starlink.

 

[rukia]

Currently Starlink requires a relatively large antenna with direct line of sight. Even the smallest Starlink Mini draws about 40 watts of power. An iPhone's antenna is very small and the phone works in the mW range. I get that the next gen of Starlink satellites will have a lower orbit to facilitate this but T-mobile's current DTC implementation gets very low bandwidth even under ideal conditions. It's fine if you're in the middle of nowhere but I'm doubtful anyone in an urban setting would find DTC satisfactory compared to terrestrial towers. I just don't see anyone who has access to service wanting to use Starlink as their sole provider.

 

[CalfCanuck]

Tell me something I don't know?



They lose their moat. #1 reason why prospective EV owners would refuse to buy a non-tesla is the supercharger network. They make less money long term since people don't need to buy a Tesla to access the Supercharger network which means they lose out on upselling other packages (premium data, FSD, insurance, service, etc...).

How are they at a disadvantage when Tesla controls pricing? Some early Tesla buyers purchased their evs with free access to the supercharger network - that was the early adopter bonus for the high price of the cars.

Tesla sets the rates for each group of users, and you always need an app, with a user account, to get power from any charging network where you are pre- identified by car model. So like every other business that can price discriminate among its users, Tesla can provide (and make a lot of money) access to non-Tesla evs at high prices per kwH while still providing an incentive for drivers to buy a Tesla and access the supercharger network at reduced, or even free, prices.

The reality is that most of us do 90-95% of our charging at home on a level 2 charger with our regular residential price per kWH, because it is a fraction of what ANY Level 3 network charges.

There’s tons of money that will be made providing electricity to high speed charging locations in the future, and I suspect many of these will bypass the grid entirely. Why sell bulk electricity from a large solar farm to your local utility at $.04/kwH when you can built a few hundred miles of transmission lines and sell it at $.34/kwH to drivers on the highways at large supercharging locations?

 

[germanbeer007]

How are they at a disadvantage when Tesla controls pricing?

I already explained: people will buy their cars less. Lifetime of additional profits from supercharging (and charging a higher price) on non-Tesla EVs won't make up for the lost potential profits of people buying Tesla cars.

Some early Tesla buyers purchased their evs with free access to the supercharger network - that was the early adopter bonus for the high price of the cars.

I don't see the relevance here.

Tesla sets the rates for each group of users,

I'm aware of how it works. I have a Tesla. Their V4 stalls show $0.60/kWh on the screen but when I plug in my Tesla, I'm charged $0.42/kWh.

There’s tons of money that will be made providing electricity to high speed charging locations in the future, and I suspect many of these will bypass the grid entirely. Why sell bulk electricity from a large solar farm to your local utility at $.04/kwH when you can built a few hundred miles of transmission lines and sell it at $.34/kwH to drivers on the highways at large supercharging locations?

There's a ton more money selling the actual car since Tesla would profit from Teslas using Superchargers and selling services to the Tesla owners. But now that people don't need to buy a Tesla to access the Supercharger network, people are free to buy non-Tesla cars.

 

[jm22381]

It would be great if Apple used this partnership with SpaceX to become the first virtual mobile operator with satellite connectivity worldwide. You'd get your eSIM from your iPhone, just like you can get Apple Care.

 

[chelsel]

Cruise ship passengers rejoice, everyone else yawns (except the 0.0001% climbing a mountain) /s

 

[Cod3rror]

How can it be "5G" if it's satellite connectivity? Is it not a difference technology?

I think eventually satellite technology will compete with cellular technology. They will have their own towers and they will distribute the connectivity to the end customer from there, except the towers will be communicating with satellites.

It’s nearly impossible to have a good, predictable, relationship with Musk.

He’s so mercurial and petty.

Jobs vs Musk would have been interesting.

 

[fchain]

Huh? How’s this any different than connecting to a WiFi network that’s using a fiber or cable connection? Why’s the “ability” to use Starlink via WiFi even included in this article?

You could use the iphone anywhere directly with Starlink without the necesity of a starkink anthena.

 

[Wollombi]

Huh? How’s this any different than connecting to a WiFi network that’s using a fiber or cable connection? Why’s the “ability” to use Starlink via WiFi even included in this article?

Because you can’t carry a fiber or cable connection with you anywhere, like you can a portable StarLink dish.

 

[Wollombi]

Wonder what the battery life impact will be like. Who here remembers when the 12s came with 5G capabilities?

Battery life on my 12 Pro was pretty good even on 5G. It’s the model that brought me back to iPhones.

 

[Wollombi]

Probably need to look at AST Spacemobile as the possible provider they will be providing broadband 5G in 2026 with no modifications needed. GlobalStar C3 system is a 2028-2029 as the ones being launched next year are not C3 or upgrades but replacements for the current system. Personally, I think Apple could just drop GlobalStar C3 system and rely on AST (Verizon & ATT) and Starlink as they are already with the MNOs & don't think Apple wants to push too far into their business. Or they could swap to AST (AST supports the GlobalStar frequencies) & save the $1b+ needed for C3 as AST is already fully funded.

Competition is always good for the consumer.

 

[reverie]

I couldn’t stand the thought of Apple giving some of my money to the real-life Sith Lord of our times. Not when 5G has great speeds, already connects 3 billion people worldwide and is still getting better every year. I hope this is not real, or else they make it a $100 option.

 

[ncc1701d]

I hope they don't restrict service when travelling over a certain speed like Space X does.

 

[J Osborne]

It will be worth it when it has mass adoption.

Will it?

I’m in rural VT and there are places with no reception (several in my garage, multiple on my property, not really any as you get into town though). I’m not convinced I would find it valuable to pay for general satellite connectivity if I already have some form of emergency SMS. About the most I could see using it for is getting a map in an area I didn’t think to load it in advance, and Apple Maps has been getting much better at locally caching areas around routes so if you drive off course they tend to know what is around you even if connectivity is zero.

I mean I wouldn’t _mind_ it, but I’m not sure I would pay extra dollars for it if it were a choice.

 

[Magnus81]

However, it remains to be seen if Apple and Musk can truly bury the bad blood between them.

Considering how Elon went from hating Anthropic to celebrating them after they leased one datacenter for X BUSD from SpaceX/xAI - my impression is that if Apple brings billions to SpaceX then suddenly Elon will love them. 😊 It’s all about business and money for future Mars projects.

I also think Elon is iPhone user and likes Steve Jobs.

 

[kcwookie]

But can you use the satellite network on a cruise ship?

 

[dontwalkhand]

Well, I guess I am going to have to upgrade to the 18 Pro after all. Was hoping I would just ride out the 17 Pro, but the 5G browsing over satellite thing is too big of a deal for me to pass up. If they can use a stronger aluminum, like 7000 series, I would definitely be down.

 

[15C Driver]

It will be worth it when it has mass adoption. It needs to be subsidized, by consumers or the taxpayer at first.

Why? Globalstar, and Iridium. and Starlink weren't. If you want it, pay for it - don't make me pay for it.

 

[15C Driver]

nope, it won't. this is not how wireless communication works. just to be clear, 5GNR provides about 10% more bandwidth on the same sized spectrum block. so it is not a magic thing. but that's not the real issue here.
it's the coverage of a satellite.
i'm going to use spaceX as an example here, because we at least know their original plans for their constellation. 40.000 satellites to cover the entire earth's surface. now do you know how many cell towers are needed to cover a small (~40k sq miles) country? depending on the geography it takes about 5000 cell towers operating in the 600-2600 MHz bands. because there's something called inverse square law and each cell tower has a finite amount of bandwidth available, so even if you could theoretically reach a lot further than terrestrial towers, the number of subscribers actively using your service would need way too much bandwidth. the coverage area of a satellite in LEO is extremely large compared to the coverage of a terrestrial tower. here we can go the spaceX numbers: 40k units to cover 197 million square miles. that is one satellite gets the subscriber traffic from almost 5000 sq miles, whereas the terrestrial ones connect users from 3-50 sq miles (typically below 5 if we talk about 4G or 5G).

this means it has to serve 1000x as much users as the ground based one. even if we would go with the c band where most MNOs have 100-120MHz bandwidth and can deliver an aggregate throughput of 1-2Gbps on a since cell that would not be enough - but DTC communication doesn't work with that band as the path lost is massive. but let's assume it would be possible: if you want to have 1Mbps dl speed on your phone in average, a ground based tower can safely serve about 1000-1500 users simultaneously. now you need to up this number by the factor of 1000 to match the coverage area of the satellite: 1 million users would mean 1 terabit/s. even if that would be just remotely possible - you can't beam it up, and you cannot send it down. for that you'd need not 100MHz spectrum but close to 100GHz.

but let's play it from a different view. assume you have your decent 5GNR mobile broadband up there, with ~2Gbps bandwidth. let's try to distribute it evenly across 1 million users. there's no known scheduler that could do that. but if it would be possible without any losses and 100% efficiency, a single handset would have access to 2kbps speeds.

and here's an even tougher problem: there's nothing up there. the internet is down, on or under the surface of the earth. there are no datacenters no CDNs, no communication infrastructure in the space. do you know why? all those things need regular maintenance, and having anything up there is the most expensive game. even spaceX's game is dubious at best, they're nowhere near to get half of their constellation done, repairing anything up there is impossible, the whole spaceX concept works like a giant wifi extender from ground stations.

there's absolutely zero chance to build out a communication infrastructure up there that could just come close to what was built in the last 2 decades on earth. not that it would be super expensive to build, even more expensive to maintain and replace, internet access is not about peer to peer communication. you need high speed access to the rest of the RAN, and to the CDNs that hold the insane amount of useless junk people watch nowadays.

nope, it won't. this is not how wireless communication works. just to be clear, 5GNR provides about 10% more bandwidth on the same sized spectrum block. so it is not a magic thing. but that's not the real issue here.
it's the coverage of a satellite.
i'm going to use spaceX as an example here, because we at least know their original plans for their constellation. 40.000 satellites to cover the entire earth's surface. now do you know how many cell towers are needed to cover a small (~40k sq miles) country? depending on the geography it takes about 5000 cell towers operating in the 600-2600 MHz bands. because there's something called inverse square law and each cell tower has a finite amount of bandwidth available, so even if you could theoretically reach a lot further than terrestrial towers, the number of subscribers actively using your service would need way too much bandwidth. the coverage area of a satellite in LEO is extremely large compared to the coverage of a terrestrial tower. here we can go the spaceX numbers: 40k units to cover 197 million square miles. that is one satellite gets the subscriber traffic from almost 5000 sq miles, whereas the terrestrial ones connect users from 3-50 sq miles (typically below 5 if we talk about 4G or 5G).

this means it has to serve 1000x as much users as the ground based one. even if we would go with the c band where most MNOs have 100-120MHz bandwidth and can deliver an aggregate throughput of 1-2Gbps on a since cell that would not be enough - but DTC communication doesn't work with that band as the path lost is massive. but let's assume it would be possible: if you want to have 1Mbps dl speed on your phone in average, a ground based tower can safely serve about 1000-1500 users simultaneously. now you need to up this number by the factor of 1000 to match the coverage area of the satellite: 1 million users would mean 1 terabit/s. even if that would be just remotely possible - you can't beam it up, and you cannot send it down. for that you'd need not 100MHz spectrum but close to 100GHz.

but let's play it from a different view. assume you have your decent 5GNR mobile broadband up there, with ~2Gbps bandwidth. let's try to distribute it evenly across 1 million users. there's no known scheduler that could do that. but if it would be possible without any losses and 100% efficiency, a single handset would have access to 2kbps speeds.

and here's an even tougher problem: there's nothing up there. the internet is down, on or under the surface of the earth. there are no datacenters no CDNs, no communication infrastructure in the space. do you know why? all those things need regular maintenance, and having anything up there is the most expensive game. even spaceX's game is dubious at best, they're nowhere near to get half of their constellation done, repairing anything up there is impossible, the whole spaceX concept works like a giant wifi extender from ground stations.

there's absolutely zero chance to build out a communication infrastructure up there that could just come close to what was built in the last 2 decades on earth. not that it would be super expensive to build, even more expensive to maintain and replace, internet access is not about peer to peer communication. you need high speed access to the rest of the RAN, and to the CDNs that hold the insane amount of useless junk people watch nowadays.

Thank you- people seem to think this is some sort of Panacea, and it just isn't. Lost in the woods, sure. But don't expect to stream. Also, let's talk about the cost- gonna be pricey!

 

[15C Driver]

key phrase "can already achieve high-speed internet speeds over a satellite connection"

It's Apple marketing BS until we see the actual speed and bandwidth real world.

 

[germanbeer007]

It's Apple marketing BS until we see the actual speed and bandwidth real world.

I don't even remember what this is about, you're replying to an 8 month old post

 

[15C Driver]

You could use the iphone anywhereT

It's literally describing that the iPhone can achieve high internet speeds using a satellite connection. The statement is correct.

It's literally describing that the iPhone can achieve high internet speeds using a satellite connection. The statement is correct.

Mmm hmmm- lets see it actually work in the field. Hell, I'd love to see the antenna alone that is going to make that work.

What they are describing is connecting to a Starlink WiFi network. So the same thing that an android phone, or a laptop, or a WiFi refrigerator can do. I've got starkink on the roof of my hangar (big metal box when all closed that acts like a faraday cage.

 

[germanbeer007]

Mmm hmmm

that's not the full context. post the entire thread.