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Kuo: iPhone 13 to Feature LEO Satellite Communications to Make Calls and Texts Without Cellular Coverage

To all the naysayers, there have been mobile devices for satellite communication for ages (texting only). These devices are typically used by hiking in the back country. So the battery, electronics, and antenna need not be huge. Even if the antenna is not integrated with the phone, I would imagine there would be a device that works via a cable or bluetooth (perhaps a mag case).

I hope this rumor is true, for it would allow the use of the iPhone pretty much everywhere in case of an isolated emergency. If it is true I'd definitely buy one since I do a lot of hiking, were it not for the fact that Apple is embedding surveillance software in iOS. I'll pass.
 
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loteq said:
Former satcom engineer here. If they are implementing satellite on iPhone then very likely will be iMessage/sms only plus location messaging similar to Garmin I reach (iridium) or spot (global star). Global star has more bandwidth so would be faster and the likely choice. It’s possible they could add voice to the package but it would be a buck a minute so hard for me to see that apple wants to offer that but who knows. It’s likely a direct global star app download and subscription. Would be huge news for globalstar tho so load up on your stonkz. 😂
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I'd say opening today up 67% is indication of loading up!!
 
cmaier said:
What you’re missing is that in America we have a lot more “middle of f’ing nowhere” than does Europe. Even on the highly populated coasts, there is a lot of “f’ing nowhere,’ and that’s certainly the case in the middle of the country. So the places where most people live (urban and suburban areas, primarily on the coasts, but also urban areas scattered about the rest of the nation) have pretty decent coverage (though not always from every carrier). But anyone who has to go to, say, east texas/west louisiana, or Kansas, or whatever, is a lot less likely to find a decent 4G signal, let alone a 5G signal.
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There's a whole lot of nowhere in Scotland without cell phone reception....
 
VulchR said:
To all the naysayers, there have been mobile devices for satellite communication for ages (texting only). These devices are typically used by hiking in the back country. So the battery, electronics, and antenna need not be huge. Even if the antenna is not integrated with the phone, I would imagine there would be a device that works via a cable or bluetooth (perhaps a mag case).
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SOS and texting, maybe. You can trade time for antenna gain and it would require less satellite capacity, so really low rate texting is easier to achieve. Voice calls seem like too much of a stretch though. And are any of the existing LEO providers even built out to handle the surge in demand from a sudden iPhone rollout?

The other things about this rumor that smell wrong to me though are mention of voice calls, the idea that Apple would include such a narrowly useful feature in a mass market product, and a customized x60? Why would Apple do that, and Qualcomm agree?
 
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raybo said:
I enjoy my SACDs. The Stones and Steely Dan recordings never sounded better. My VW's HD radio brings in more channels for each "station", helps fund publicly-supported broadcasters. MiniDisk - nope.
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I thought SACD's and HDFM were dead. Interesting... MinDisc is very very gone I'd wager. I haven't seen a MiniDisc in ages. I still have the Sony waterproof player, and almost bought a component stereo MiniDisc player. I still have Dark Side Of The Moon on MiniDisc. OM!!! Sony made a MiniDisc changer?! Wow...:oops:
 
Analog Kid said:
SOS and texting, maybe. You can trade time for antenna gain and it would require less satellite capacity, so really low rate texting is easier to achieve. Voice calls seem like too much of a stretch though. And are any of the existing LEO providers even built out to handle the surge in demand from a sudden iPhone rollout?

The other things about this rumor that smell wrong to me though are mention of voice calls, the idea that Apple would include such a narrowly useful feature in a mass market product, and a customized x60? Why would Apple do that, and Qualcomm agree?
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Regarding surge, Iridium has been replacing satellites I've heard. They might be in a good position to handle any expansion.
 
Stridr69 said:
SiriusXM radios always used button-sized antennas. Not sure what you mean there....
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The first ones were 'larger', but you are right, they were not 'gigantic'. Perhaps the comment was more about early 'satellite TV', which did require a gigantic dish, and elaborate mounts and receivers to aim and decode the many channels. During the 'First Gulf War' I had a 15' dish and a Toshiba receiver, and would spend hours at night, and the weekend, looking for 'wild feeds', and would trip onto feeds from the Gulf War, and a dizzying array of wacko religious freaks, and movies, TV shows, and just about anything else you can imagine. Occasionally the pay channels would have free weekends, which was nice, but they monetized even those gigantic dishes. TANSTAAFL...

Occasionally we even got feeds from other countries. I tripped on to a cryptic, and infamous wild feed out of Iraq one night. Weird... Those were the days, eh?
 
I suspect this feature will work when used with an external antenna plugged into the phone. A great option for those that hike, boat and go into areas that have no cell signal and can't afford a dedicated satellite phone and service
 
IMO this is exuberance about inclusion of B53, not actual satcoms. But, let's assume that I'm wrong and it really is satcom...

From the Globalsat point of view, much of their lunch is shortly going to be eaten by Starlink and friends. They need to reposition and this looks a lot like that. I'm not sure how they get enough subs to make it worthwhile, tho.
 
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VulchR said:
There's a whole lot of nowhere in Scotland without cell phone reception....
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I’ve been to Scotland, and it’s so small I think it’s hard to say there’s a “whole lot” of anything, unless you mean haggis :)

All of Scotland is smaller than Maine, just one U.S. state. We’ve got 50 of them, mostly bigger than Scotland, and with just as much “nowhere” in each.
 
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w5jck said:
I call total BS on this guess/prediction. LEOs are in a very low orbit and will only be in range for earth communications at any given point for a few minutes each pass, so perhaps 3 to 5 minutes if you are lucky. It would require a swarm of LEOs and probably a much bigger antenna, as in much bigger than the iPhone itself. I'm an Extra Class licensed amateur radio operator (ham) who has monitored several LEOs as they pass by, including the International Space Station. This simply cannot be done with an iPhone and the current state of technology built into them. Even with the proper equipment, it requires a lot of knowledge and a well placed antenna. Total bleeping BS!!! There is a reason we use GEOs (geostationary satellites at 36,000 km altitude). You have to get that far away to keep the satellite over a specific location on earth. A LEO orbits the earth at less than 1,000 km, and makes another complete orbit about every 1.5 hours (90 minutes). No way this will work today....
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Don’t be so sure. The Garmin InReach uses LEO satellites. It has a bigger antenna than is inside the iPhone but not huge. And definitely not bigger than the iPhone itself. The InReach devices are quite compact actually
 
VulchR said:
To all the naysayers, there have been mobile devices for satellite communication for ages (texting only). These devices are typically used by hiking in the back country. So the battery, electronics, and antenna need not be huge. Even if the antenna is not integrated with the phone, I would imagine there would be a device that works via a cable or bluetooth (perhaps a mag case).

I hope this rumor is true, for it would allow the use of the iPhone pretty much everywhere in case of an isolated emergency. If it is true I'd definitely buy one since I do a lot of hiking, were it not for the fact that Apple is embedding surveillance software in iOS. I'll pass.
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In the end it's about managing a set of engineering compromises that are in conflict with each other. Such as...required communications channel bandwidth, receiver noise figure, antenna efficiency/gain/directivity/(mis)orientation, link distance and resulting path loss, latency requirements, handset transmit power and battery capacity, device size/weight, etc.

Some very generalized major handwaving:

In a nutshell it's about having enough signal power to overcome the noise power (signal to nose ratio) in a communications channel to enable successful demodulation and thus communication.

Texting is relatively easy needing little channel bandwidth (less noise for a weak transmitted signal to overcome) transmitted at a low bits/second with latency not a concern. Thus, texting only devices can be small with little transmit power (small battery) and inefficient antennas.

Each doubling of channel bandwidth needed for a faster and more sophisticated transmission mode with reasonable latency beyond texting doubles the channel noise (kTB), requiring more transmitted power and better (larger) antennas for successful demodulation at the receiving end. That comes at the cost of a larger user device with larger battery and larger more efficient antenna to provide more gain to maintain the SNR necessary for successful demodulation.
 
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Title should read: “Apple and governments can now scan iPhoto libraries and track iPhones without cellular or Wi-Fi.”

All jokes aside, this seems like a huge announcement to just now be leaked. I see this coming out in iPhone 14 or 15. The hardware in iPhone 13 may be capable but i don’t think ios will support it for at least a year or two.
 
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w5jck said:
I call total BS on this guess/prediction. LEOs are in a very low orbit and will only be in range for earth communications at any given point for a few minutes each pass, so perhaps 3 to 5 minutes if you are lucky. It would require a swarm of LEOs and probably a much bigger antenna, as in much bigger than the iPhone itself. I'm an Extra Class licensed amateur radio operator (ham) who has monitored several LEOs as they pass by, including the International Space Station. This simply cannot be done with an iPhone and the current state of technology built into them. Even with the proper equipment, it requires a lot of knowledge and a well placed antenna. Total bleeping BS!!! There is a reason we use GEOs (geostationary satellites at 36,000 km altitude). You have to get that far away to keep the satellite over a specific location on earth. A LEO orbits the earth at less than 1,000 km, and makes another complete orbit about every 1.5 hours (90 minutes). No way this will work today....
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What if this was just an emergency situation type of deal, you get lost in the woods, send emergency text, phone lets you know that it'll take up to # minutes for satellite to be reached, and will use up a # percent of battery life. Would that situation be doable?
 
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Pretty sure this is all just about support for the ground frequency for LTE/5G communications, and has nothing to do with reaching a LEO satellite.
 
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GubbyMan said:
Globalstar satellite phones have huge antennas sticking out like they are from the late nineties. Can they really just use the iPhone antennas to connect to these satellites? This rumor from Kuo is specific enough that I wouldn't doubt it though.
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Anyone else feel the past few weeks of iPhone 13 rumors continuing to grow as if a HUGE/HARD sell for iOS 15 despite backlash again CSAM?

mozumder said:
Big if true. But I believe it's going to be extremely difficult to transmit voice from phone to LEO satellite - not enough antenna power. So maybe low bitrate text.
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w5jck said:
I call total BS on this guess/prediction. LEOs are in a very low orbit and will only be in range for earth communications at any given point for a few minutes each pass, so perhaps 3 to 5 minutes if you are lucky. It would require a swarm of LEOs and probably a much bigger antenna, as in much bigger than the iPhone itself. I'm an Extra Class licensed amateur radio operator (ham) who has monitored several LEOs as they pass by, including the International Space Station. This simply cannot be done with an iPhone and the current state of technology built into them. Even with the proper equipment, it requires a lot of knowledge and a well placed antenna. Total bleeping BS!!! There is a reason we use GEOs (geostationary satellites at 36,000 km altitude). You have to get that far away to keep the satellite over a specific location on earth. A LEO orbits the earth at less than 1,000 km, and makes another complete orbit about every 1.5 hours (90 minutes). No way this will work today....
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I'm not so sure about this being BS.

Forgive my very laymen understanding about antenna and signal strength.

Cellphones had pretty large antennae in terms of Length ... then fat and stubble - made famous by Ericsson. now completely internal. So if our networks have been updated the principle here was as long as limited signal emitting from the device (in terms of power), it had to remain in-range of the network ... 1, then 2, then 7KM range of your networks' cell towers.

In what I think, and probably wrong, is that the Globalstar network hasn't been updated like our phones have and thus that's the main issue why this will not work?
 
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Rafterman said:
So, we should ignore a new safety feature and not use it, because we should all look tough and take unnecessary risks, when there is a way to protect yourself?
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The problem is with people who are too stupid to learn the proper existing skills and rely solely on their cell phone as map, flashlight, etc… and just assume they'll call for help if they get in trouble. On top of that, they go with almost no preparation, just using applications on their phone that have inaccurate crowdsourced information instead of reading the edited, published, accurate books on the area. And finally they find themselves in vast areas that have no cell service.

The most important rule about technology in the woods is to assume it will NOT work.
 
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GubbyMan said:
Globalstar satellite phones have huge antennas sticking out like they are from the late nineties. Can they really just use the iPhone antennas to connect to these satellites? This rumor from Kuo is specific enough that I wouldn't doubt it though.
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More likely to have base stations I believe
 
Fake hype is working since AAPL and GSAT are up. Globalsat market cap gained more in one day than the $55 million they were sold for when they went bankrupt.
 
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PinkyMacGodess said:
Regarding surge, Iridium has been replacing satellites I've heard. They might be in a good position to handle any expansion.
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Iridium handles about 1.5m subs today, with a 13% annual growth rate. I don’t think subs will jump 200 million on release day, but they’re going to ramp much, much faster than any niche provider is prepared for.
 
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