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It'll be low bandwidth of course. The starlink antenna size is just to give more bandwidth. Bigger antenna means less error correction which means more bandwidt

It'll be low bandwidth of course. The starlink antenna size is just to give more bandwidth. Bigger antenna means less error correction which means more bandwidth for other things. Voice compressed can be intelligible at 300bps. You can do that with a smaller antenna and more error correction. Mobile Satellite phones are already similar in size to other phones.

geocrasher 5y ago
Per phone might be low bandwidth, but tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of phones is not low bandwidth.
- Retric 5y ago
  And how many iPhones are going to be used out of network? I can see people paying an extreme rate of say 10$/minute with serious warnings in a true emergency. But worldwide it might only be 100 phones at a time even with 10’s of millions of iPhones. Meanwhile averaging 100 calls * 10$/ minute is 1/2 billion dollars a year which could pay for bandwidth on LEO satellites. Those numbers are of course pulled from thin air, but iridium suffers because few are going to keep such expensive service on a just in case basis. However, the technology and economics are really close to working out.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    I carry an iridium hotspot when away from civilization and I’d definitely use an eSIM in my iPhone to get access to LEO sms or voice calls in a pinch. One less device to carry.
- nullityrofl 5y ago
  > Per phone might be low bandwidth Yes, but you used the comparison to Starlink receivers. Per-phone is all that matters to refute your receiver size concern. The reporting suggests that Apple partnered with Globalstar for delivery. I don't think anyone is under any illusions that Apple suddenly launched a LEO fleet but there's a lot of providers of satellite mobile telephony in the space and Globalstar is one of them. Low bandwidth satellite does not take huge hardware anymore. You can buy Iridium or Globalstar mobile hotspots that are handheld in size (e.g., Iridium Go!). Many trail runners carry Garmin InReach which is phone-sized.
908B64B197 5y ago
I could see an external accessory (that you plug via the lightning port) that has a radio and external antenna to connect to sat networks. Maybe extra batteries too. However, it's very un-apple-like to do something like that.
- long11l 5y ago
  Apple has a long history of forcing features into external devices
dreamcompiler 5y ago
This. And it's not just that the starlink antenna is bigger; it also moves (virtually -- it's a phased array) to follow the moving satellite. Pointing at the satellite (either with motors or with phased array technology) is absolutely essential for high-bandwidth LEO. Iridium antennas don't follow the satellite; they're effectively omnidirectional so their gain and S/N ratio are terrible. And that's good enough for the 2400bps Iridium provides. But it's nowhere near what a 4G or 5G land-based connection provides to a normal smartphone.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  Just throwing this out there; but with a handheld device, GPS, clock, known and predictable location of the sats, a high resolution accelerometer… wouldn’t it be possible to get the user to point to the sky and then send the message? Small antenna, text only, etc. Seems like Apple could disrupt here, but I don’t know a ton on antenna design.
  - dreamcompiler 5y ago
    No. Your aim has to be much better than the human musculoskeletal system is capable of. Go outside on a dark night and point a laser pointer at a building 100 meters away. Hold it as steady as you can. Have a friend take a closeup video of the bright spot from 2 meters away. Notice how much the dot wobbles around. Now imagine doing the same experiment where the dot is 540km away -- 5000 times farther. That's the altitude of a Starlink satellite. You might get lucky and sweep across the satellite once in a while but most of the time the beam will be many kilometers away from it. It's not quite this bad; the beam will be fairly wide at 540km which makes the problem a little bit easier, but it's still basically impossible to hold the beam on the satellite for more than a few milliseconds. And even that wouldn't work because you can't collect a strong enough signal from a satellite with an antenna the size of a cell phone. You need a parabolic dish or phased array about the size of a pizza box (minimum) to boost the gain enough. Satellites don't transmit with a lot of power, so your antenna needs a large area. Good news: You don't have to do it this way. If you limit yourself to short text messages you don't have to aim the beam or use a lot of gain. That's how Iridium works. But if you need a fatter pipe: Carry an antenna the size of a pizza box with you. Set it on the ground, let it acquire the satellite, then talk to it with your phone over wifi or bluetooth. Because this antenna uses closed loop feedback it can point very accurately at the satellite and stay locked on. This is basically how the Starlink antenna works, except Starlink would prefer that you not move the antenna from place to place (yet). And you'll need a big battery to power the antenna. It needs about 100 watts for transmitting; probably quite a bit less for receiving.
jsjohnst 5y ago
> Mobile Satellite phones are already similar in size to other phones As someone who owns a pretty big smartphone (iPhone 12 Pro Max) and both a current gen Iridium and Inmarsat phone (aka not a handheld two way pager, like the Garmin devices), I can assure you they aren’t similar in size in the slightest, even with the antenna stowed.

geocrasher 5y ago

Per phone might be low bandwidth, but tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of phones is not low bandwidth.

Retric 5y ago
And how many iPhones are going to be used out of network? I can see people paying an extreme rate of say 10$/minute with serious warnings in a true emergency. But worldwide it might only be 100 phones at a time even with 10’s of millions of iPhones. Meanwhile averaging 100 calls * 10$/ minute is 1/2 billion dollars a year which could pay for bandwidth on LEO satellites. Those numbers are of course pulled from thin air, but iridium suffers because few are going to keep such expensive service on a just in case basis. However, the technology and economics are really close to working out.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  I carry an iridium hotspot when away from civilization and I’d definitely use an eSIM in my iPhone to get access to LEO sms or voice calls in a pinch. One less device to carry.
nullityrofl 5y ago
> Per phone might be low bandwidth Yes, but you used the comparison to Starlink receivers. Per-phone is all that matters to refute your receiver size concern. The reporting suggests that Apple partnered with Globalstar for delivery. I don't think anyone is under any illusions that Apple suddenly launched a LEO fleet but there's a lot of providers of satellite mobile telephony in the space and Globalstar is one of them. Low bandwidth satellite does not take huge hardware anymore. You can buy Iridium or Globalstar mobile hotspots that are handheld in size (e.g., Iridium Go!). Many trail runners carry Garmin InReach which is phone-sized.

908B64B197 5y ago

I could see an external accessory (that you plug via the lightning port) that has a radio and external antenna to connect to sat networks. Maybe extra batteries too. However, it's very un-apple-like to do something like that.

long11l 5y ago
Apple has a long history of forcing features into external devices

dreamcompiler 5y ago

This. And it's not just that the starlink antenna is bigger; it also moves (virtually -- it's a phased array) to follow the moving satellite. Pointing at the satellite (either with motors or with phased array technology) is absolutely essential for high-bandwidth LEO. Iridium antennas don't follow the satellite; they're effectively omnidirectional so their gain and S/N ratio are terrible. And that's good enough for the 2400bps Iridium provides. But it's nowhere near what a 4G or 5G land-based connection provides to a normal smartphone.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
Just throwing this out there; but with a handheld device, GPS, clock, known and predictable location of the sats, a high resolution accelerometer… wouldn’t it be possible to get the user to point to the sky and then send the message? Small antenna, text only, etc. Seems like Apple could disrupt here, but I don’t know a ton on antenna design.
- dreamcompiler 5y ago
  No. Your aim has to be much better than the human musculoskeletal system is capable of. Go outside on a dark night and point a laser pointer at a building 100 meters away. Hold it as steady as you can. Have a friend take a closeup video of the bright spot from 2 meters away. Notice how much the dot wobbles around. Now imagine doing the same experiment where the dot is 540km away -- 5000 times farther. That's the altitude of a Starlink satellite. You might get lucky and sweep across the satellite once in a while but most of the time the beam will be many kilometers away from it. It's not quite this bad; the beam will be fairly wide at 540km which makes the problem a little bit easier, but it's still basically impossible to hold the beam on the satellite for more than a few milliseconds. And even that wouldn't work because you can't collect a strong enough signal from a satellite with an antenna the size of a cell phone. You need a parabolic dish or phased array about the size of a pizza box (minimum) to boost the gain enough. Satellites don't transmit with a lot of power, so your antenna needs a large area. Good news: You don't have to do it this way. If you limit yourself to short text messages you don't have to aim the beam or use a lot of gain. That's how Iridium works. But if you need a fatter pipe: Carry an antenna the size of a pizza box with you. Set it on the ground, let it acquire the satellite, then talk to it with your phone over wifi or bluetooth. Because this antenna uses closed loop feedback it can point very accurately at the satellite and stay locked on. This is basically how the Starlink antenna works, except Starlink would prefer that you not move the antenna from place to place (yet). And you'll need a big battery to power the antenna. It needs about 100 watts for transmitting; probably quite a bit less for receiving.

jsjohnst 5y ago

> Mobile Satellite phones are already similar in size to other phones As someone who owns a pretty big smartphone (iPhone 12 Pro Max) and both a current gen Iridium and Inmarsat phone (aka not a handheld two way pager, like the Garmin devices), I can assure you they aren’t similar in size in the slightest, even with the antenna stowed.