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Globalstar SEC filing, Apple to use 85% of its satellite network capacity
- samwillis 4y agoIf I’m reading this filing right, Apple have committed to using 85% of Globalstars satellite network capacity for the new emergency messaging feature. It’s seems astonishing to me that they would be using this much bandwidth for that emergency feature, and (at least initially) only on a small portion of iPhones. My only thinking is that they may be planning to make the satellite network available to none emergency messaging too, and that’s what’s covered in this filing.
- sschueller 4y agoIt's a great feature worth a lot of money to US law enforcement and co. Being able to track anyone regardless if they have cell signal. /s
- wmf 4y agoOr the capacity of the network is really low.
- wongarsu 4y agoAccording to Wikipedia they have 52 first-generation satellites from the late 90s, and 24 second-generation satellites from around 2010. And if we go by Iridium's lifetime I wouldn't expect the first generation to still be operational. Compared to Starlink's 2400 currently operational satellites that does seem low. Even compared to Iridium's 75 from the late 2010s, Globalstar's 24 seems small.
- oneplane 4y agoIt's the kind of 'low bandwidth' you'd see with analog telephone modems. A single JSON request-response over TLS would take many seconds.
- walrus01 4y agoCurrent generation globalstar is about the same speed as first gen iridium, which is around the speed of a 2400 bps dialup modem from the late 1980s. With the current satellites, yes, if they think they have enough capital (at least many hundreds of millions) to launch a new clean sheet of paper design LEO network using the existing globalstar L/S-band spectrum licenses, they could implement something better. The value of globalstar is not in the existing satellites and earth stations, which are pretty much trash at this point for any modern use except very low data rate M2M data in certain geographically restricted areas. The value is in the existing LEO network operational licenses.
- oneplane 4y agoYep, similar value is found on other technically inept solutions that are mostly kept around to keep the license to operate active (since some of those require active use to retain them).
- kylehotchkiss 4y agoThe mentioned in the announcement developing a very efficient data codec for text compression, I'd presume something Binary and not over TLS, just raw data packets probably with some encryption
- oneplane 4y agoI'm sure the Apple use case is different from a web api, but it was more for illustrative purposes. I imagine most developers know how to wrap data in JSON and how to do a HTTP call over TLS. When using that as a point of reference, having such a transmission take a long time might show how little bandwidth some M2M networks have (or need). I wouldn't be surprised if the current Globalstar network is so limited it wouldn't even do voice.
- kylehotchkiss 4y agoThey support voice (https://www.globalstar.com/en-us/products/voice-and-data https://www.globalstar.com/en-us/products/voice-and-data), it's my understanding that it's analog and not digital though, like a really narrowband landline phone call
- mirekrusin 4y agoThey say 85% so it must be 17 out of 20, no?
- thrdbndndn 4y ago>I wouldn't expect the first generation to still be operational From Wikipedia: >In 2007, Globalstar launched eight additional first-generation spare satellites into space to help compensate for the premature failure of their in-orbit satellites. Between 2010 and 2013, Globalstar launched 24 second-generation satellites in an effort to restore their system to full service. So you're totally right.
- Gh0stRAT 4y agoSlightly apples-to-oranges comparison on the satellite count. Unlike Globalstar, the Iridium network uses polar orbits which means they're covering a larger area and thus need more satellites to achieve comparable service in the limited latitudes that Globalstar covers. (that being said, if you're going to be in mountainous terrain, higher latitudes, far from land, etc then Iridium will have better coverage)
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- closetohome 4y agoApparently it works with Find My as well. I wouldn't be surprised if they started rolling out premium features that take more bandwidth once everybody's free two years expires.
- bombcar 4y agoThis is it right here! The "emergency" part is a feel-good on top of the real service, which is location updates every X time even when off in no cell service land.
- manderley 4y ago"every X time" meaning as often as you're willing to point your phone at a satellite and wait a few minutes for your location to transmit?
- Melatonic 4y agoYea this must be the main feature. And is pretty huge. The emergency thing is icing on the cake. Unfortunately GlobalStar is probably one of the worst satellite constellations out there (that I know of at least) for actual communication (SPOT devices used or still use GlobalStar and are famously crap compared to Garmin inReach on Iridium). Of course it could be improved and they do have the bandwith licenses which is important.
- dougmwne 4y agoNot sure how much else they could do with it. You need to wave your phone around at the sky to send a few bytes of data. It must just be a really low capacity network.
- matt-attack 4y agoApple has apparently used a very very high gain (i.e. highly directional) antenna. That's how they got around having that big external antenna found on competitive hand-helds. I quite like the idea of aiming it by hand using software as the guide.
- vageli 4y ago> Apple has apparently used a very very high gain (i.e. highly directional) antenna. That's how they got around having that big external antenna found on competitive hand-helds. > I quite like the idea of aiming it by hand using software as the guide. In the event of an emergency, fumbling with my phone to find service sounds like a nightmare.
- reaperducer 4y agoBut it will probably reduce the number of casual pranksters. Also, difficult-to-use is better than zero connectivity, which is the current situation.
- kylehotchkiss 4y agoThe tens of thousands billed for a frivolous rescue request probably will stop the casual pranksters too, getting a helicopter out to wherever you're stuck isn't a free service. If you're really out in remote places often, you probably know this well enough to get rescue insurance.
- ar_turnbull 4y agoActually it depends. In Canada, many rescue services are free (North Shore Vancouver is a well known one here) as well as in the National Parks (the cost is essentially insurance paid for by the park pass fee) and many provincial parks. There is an argument that pay for rescue causes people to hesitate to call and that can lead to worse outcomes and/or more dangerous rescue scenarios.
- blantonl 4y agoI think you underestimate how many iPhones are sold per year, and how many phones Apple forecasts to sell for the 14 model which is satellite enabled. We're talking tens of millions Couple that with phones that will roam into satellite coverage in rural areas... there will be extensive bandwidth requirements from this newly deployed fleet. Especially in the summer...
- wmf 4y agophones that will roam into satellite coverage in rural areas That's not what Apple announced. Satellite service is only for emergencies and is cumbersome to use.
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- aabhay 4y agoFor now! It would make sense for Apple to eventually own/manage a satellite fleet for global communication in the near future. The current carriers must be shitting their pants about this.
- jlmorton 4y agoI'm not exactly sure what you're imagining, but there are fundamental physics problems in the way of just launching a bunch of satellites and enabling global communications. Apple has partnered with Globalstar to use geostationary satellites to send incredibly small amounts of data measured in bytes, not kilobytes. These satellites have only limited bandwidth, and it's very expensive. And with the antenna size and power available in a phone today, it's never going to be more than kilobytes. SpaceX Starlink/TMobile announced a much higher-bandwidth option, but it's incredibly fleeting, lasting just a few seconds. Starlink satellites are in very low Earth orbit, moving at 8km/second. You can't just point an antenna at it and have it work. The antenna needs to track the satellite. And it needs to have a constant line of sight free of obstructions. Starlink currently builds a very cheap phased-array antenna, but it's still ~$1,000 to manufacture, it's a couple cubic feet in volume, and it uses >100 watts. Starlink V2 will bring very large antennas to Starlink satellites which will enable direct 5G connectivity, but that connectivity will last for a few seconds, with perhaps thirty minutes between connections. I'm not saying it's impossible, but no one knows how to build a satellite system currently that will cause any carriers to shit their pants.
- gigatexal 4y agoThere’s 1B iPhone users. If 10% upgrade to a 14 pro and over the course of a few years that will ramp
- heartbreak 4y agoImagine a repeat of Hurricane Harvey, but this time people can request rescues via their iPhone’s satellite capability. That could generate a relatively high volume of traffic.
- poulsbohemian 4y agoYou do have to wonder at what point Apple decides they don't need Verizon, T-Mobile et. al. Maybe it's still a long ways off, but if you've gone through the effort of building relationships, hardware, software, etc to weave together a satellite network, why not just keep going down that path?
- xattt 4y agoMy guess for Apple’s long game is is to turn the Find My network into a distributed network for comms beyond location data. One of the incentives to participate may be free or reduced-cost satellite data.
- martinald 4y agoYou're vastly underestimating the bandwidth required for cellular service. A starlink sat "cell" can do ~20gbit/sec (though I actually think real world performance will be massively lower). This covers hundreds of kilometres. A single cell tower with 5G/4G is not far off doing that, per sector. And these cell towers can cover as little as 500m or less in dense urban areas. The problem is there are very real physics you come up against with this. We are really tapping out efficiency gains these days so the only option is more, higher frequency spectrum and much denser cell networks.
- jsjohnst 4y ago> A single cell tower with 5G/4G is not far off doing that, per sector. Assuming you mean LTE when you say 4G, the per sector bandwidth is customarily an order of magnitude less than 20gbps. Even in the case of 5G, with sub-6Ghz anyway, you rarely will see above 15gbps. There’s only so many bits per second you can squeeze per megahertz and below 6Ghz the allocations there just isn’t enough available frequency. That’s why cell towers have gotten much closer together.
- martinald 4y agoWhere did I mention only sub 6GHz? With mmWave towers are comfortably pushing around 20gig. 4G (LTE) and 5G have similar bits/Hz loadings anyway. And towers are getting closer together. You reduce transmit/receive power and place the towers closer, which results in similar coverage but less interference between cells (with reduced power output).
- quitit 4y agoYou are correct - the keynote mentioned that location sharing is also available over satellite.
- schappim 4y agoIt isn't just used for the emergency feature, it is also used for the "Find My" network. I suspect more traffic will come from "Find My" than from the emergency feature.
- c7DJTLrn 4y agoSource? That seems like a big omission from their keynote earlier today.
- melvinram 4y agoIt wasn't omitted. It was covered in the keynote. It's also on their website: Let friends know how remote you go. If you’re on an adventure without cell service, you can now use Find My to share your location via satellite so friends and family know where you are.
- tonyhb 4y agoApple's always-on pingback no matter where you go in the globe, even if you disable cell networks. I do believe they care about privacy, though if you look at features like this it's easy to see that they can be worse than Google if they wanted.
- dymk 4y agoAirplane mode. Of course if you don’t trust that, you shouldn’t be buying an Apple product anyways. They could ship an always on microphone streaming to their servers if they wanted to. But we trust that they won’t.
- alasdair_ 4y agoFind my works even if the iphone is turned off - does airplane mode stop this?
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- layer8 4y agoYou have to consider that Apple is selling 200 million iPhones per year.
- TedShiller 4y agoMany unprepared geeks are planning to do risky hikes after reading this
- shapefrog 4y agoGlobalstar, Inc. Mkt cap 3.71B. Do I have to be the angry parent with the shotgun or are Apple going to make an honest woman out of Globalstar and just buy them. There is probably enough down the back of the sofa at cuppertino to cover it. While we are at it someone might want to check Apple employee stock portfolios ... that is a strong 80% straight line rally in a bear market the last few months after they announced their profit margins were -72% in June
- neximo64 4y agoIt wouldn't actually be smart to buy Globalstar, if Apple did they're on the hook for that 3.71B + the cost theyd spend on those messages. This way they pay a relatively minute fee and can have a guarantee they can use Globalstar's existence to compete with others on with price. So they not only don't spend 3.71B they won't get back, the cost of those messages is relatively nothing and easy to compete on with others - for what is a commoditised service. They'd also force Globalstar to spend all that cash theyd get from Apple on their capex, at no risk to Apple. Almost a similar reason to outsource to Foxconn vs buy them and have it in house.
- shapefrog 4y agoFair, given the 36.8mil of revenue for Globalstar, the annual deal for apple is going to be around that number, actual pocket change. I do disagree however, that global satellite coverage is a commoditised service just yet.
- jsjohnst 4y ago> Do I have to be the angry parent with the shotgun or are Apple going to make an honest woman out of Globalstar and just buy them. So the way to make an “honest woman” is to force somebody “to marry her at gunpoint” you say? The previous century called and would like their antiquated statements back. I’m sure you didn’t mean to be sexist, just pointing out the obvious about how bad that phrase is these days.
- shapefrog 4y ago
- anovikov 4y agoiPhone does not have a directional antenna. It will take enormous amount of power on satellite to communicate to it.
- treesknees 4y agoThis is one thing that worries me about the feature. If you're stuck in the middle of nowhere with no coverage, presumably no power outlets..., is attempting to transmit a message going to work if you're sitting at 5% battery left?
- greesil 4y agoGlobalstar also has spectrum and the capability to have ancillary terrestrial ground systems. Apple could just buy them now and roll out its own cell network.
- wmf 4y agoThe timing of the Starlink/T-Mobile pre-announcement makes sense now.
- darknavi 4y agoAnd a lot more attractive. An addition subscription for a hard to use SOS vs 3G data speeds for "free" for many T-Mobile customers. I will also say one is vaporware at this point and one is coming out next week.
- alphabettsy 4y agoiPhone 14 users will enjoy both though right?
- scrumbledober 4y agotmobile iphone 14 users are about to be the most connected people on the planet
- sschueller 4y agoLacking a SIM card so I would say no.
- alphabettsy 4y agoThey lack a physical SIM, still have up to 8 eSIMs. What difference does it make for using T-Mobile?
- valine 4y agoTmobile Starlink is text only. It definitely does not support 3G data speeds.
- fastball 4y agoThey've stated it can do 2-4Mbps per cell region, which actually is 3G speeds if you're the only person in the region. In practice not 3G speeds, but still much better than what this Apple / Globalstar service will be capable of.
- mandeepj 4y agoI believe Apple is going to - either acquire Globalstar or a similar satellite carrier (Lynk?) in the future. It's safe to buy stocks of the former.
- mikece 4y agoOr hedge their bets by buying a right of first refusal option from Globalstar should anyone else try to acquire them while leaving Apple free to look for other options and partners.
- jws 4y agoThe feature is sold as a two year free subscription to the service, not a feature of the device. That suggests to me Apple isn't committed to this forever. They want do be able to abandon the technology and human staffed relay infrastructure if this is eclipsed by satellite 5G or some other option and not get sued in 195 countries for breaking a device feature after the sale.
- mandeepj 4y ago> That suggests to me Apple isn't committed to this forever. Apple TV+ is also offered as 1 year free service when you buy a new phone, then you can also say the same about it, but - in fact - needless to say, Apple is committed to it.
- tdhoot 4y agoOnly once, not for every phone. So if you get it once, buying another phone won't renew it. And now it's only 3 months.
- Daneel_ 4y agoI don't read this as lack of commitment, I read this as "we want to keep a limit on the total number of active devices" - if it's free for two years then there will be a moderate percentage that always have it because they refresh their device every two years or less, there will be a significantly smaller percentage that use an older device and choose to pay the ongoing fee, and a much larger percentage that keep the device longer than two years but don't pay the fee. This last category is how they'll effectively manage the ongoing costs - anyone who isn't a frequent customer or willing to pay is excluded. It's a solid model.
- ceeplusplus 4y ago> Partner has agreed to make certain payments to the Company for (i) 95% of the approved capital expenditures Globalstar makes in connection with the new satellites described The real secret that will be studied in business school for decades to come is Apple's supplier model.
- hackernewds 4y agoHaving trouble understanding this. Why is it special that the supply model be studied?
- ec109685 4y agoThey are able to swoop in and lock up supply better than any company and turn the screws on them to produce exactly what Apple needs.
- ceeplusplus 4y agoTheir strategy uniquely gives you the upside of internal R&D (pace, funding, and direction are set by you) with none of the downside (potential disruption by new technologies). Apple can drop a supplier on a dime if a disruptive technology comes out. If that same tech was being developed in house, there would have been too much internal politics and momentum for that switch to happen. But because they bankroll capex, they have control over the direction and pace of incremental R&D.
- urthor 4y agoNote that Tim Cook and Jeff Williams the COO and Tim's right hand human, spent their entire careers before senior leadership managing Apple's supply chain.
- yardie 4y agoWhile I wish it was Iridium I guess it sort of makes sense. Out of all the GMDSS satellite provider Globalstar had the weakest offshore coverage. It appears they focus on the probably more popular land based coverage rather than true global open water coverage. Iridium probably has more expensive product for true global coverage.
- walrus01 4y agoGlobalstar having "weak" offshore and truly global coverage is because the present globalstar architecture is a bent pipe, a satellite needs to be simultaneously in view of a globalstar-run earth station and the end user terminal (handheld phone, data modem module with antenna, etc). Globalstar in the serious two way satellite business has been a joke for 15+ years, everyone who needs something serious that'll work anywhere on the planet has implemented solutions with Iridium, or something else geostationary based for low data rate (inmarsat isatphone, if not needed for very high latitude services). Or of course the wide array of different types of Inmarsat medium speed much more costly data terminals for briefcase-size folding (BGAN terminals, etc), ground vehicles, ships and aviation. One of the Inmarsat 3rd party RF/modem partners is now making a data terminal for the medium sized UAV market which is about 3.5 pounds of stuff total including the antenna and good for 200-300 kbps of data, albeit at a typically high inmarsat $ per MB cost. Or with small ku/ka-band self aiming vsat terminals in radome (commonly seen on ships), which get costly, which are quickly having their market eaten by starlink's much higher speeds and lower costs. The value of globalstar at this point is probably in its spectrum licenses and legal entity's ability to operate, which given sufficiently deep pockets in capital resources, can be replaced with much newer and better tech in the L/S-band satellite-to-phone RF segment. I would bet good money that the people who are bankrolling this believe that they now have reliable access to two things: a) relatively low $/kilogram cost for launches to LEO on some spacex competitor b) low cost per unit mass production of satellites in an assembly line fashion, much as starlink satellites are currently churned out in large quantities. Obviously they now know that what Motorola designed in 1997 for satellite-to-satellite data links in the same orbital plane for Iridium was the right way to go, I'd be shocked if a replacement Globalstar network did not implement a more modern version of the same. Same general idea as spacex's beta satellite-to-satellite laser links. In the defense contractor/military/DoD world I have literally never seen a Globalstar terminal in use for anything anybody cares about. The only globalstar phones I've seen were in the hands of the staff of enthusiastic-but-utterly-telecom-clueless international aid NGOs, which not surprisingly completely failed to work in the location where they were trying to use them. They ended up packing them back into their boxes, putting them in a closet and buying Iridium handhelds. Here's a CURRENT globalstar coverage map: https://www.globalstar.com/Globalstar/media/Globalstar/Images/Coverage%20Maps/Globalstar-Coverage-Voice-and-Data-Gen1.png https://www.globalstar.com/Globalstar/media/Globalstar/Image... The part in the filing that says this: > Partner has agreed to make certain payments to the Company for (i) 95% of the approved capital expenditures Globalstar makes in connection with the new satellites described I translate this as meaning that they intend to forklift upgrade the entire network to something that they think can reasonably compete with Iridium (and now SpaceX/Starlink) in addition to other regional players like Thuraya, and also of course Inmarsat.
- manv1 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalstar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalstar 9,600 bit/s packet switched Internet access (Direct Internet) 9,600 bit/s circuit switched data calls (Direct Dial-Up) That's probably under ideal conditions.
- SSLy 4y agoAPPL pays for new HW to replace their infra
- fastball 4y agoThat's when you have an actual satellite antenna on the grown tho, not whatever underpowered antenna they're using in iPhone 14.
- thehappypm 4y ago1 bit/second is enough to save someone’s life in an emergency.
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- post-it 4y agoI've come to prefer Apple Maps. I like that it tells me "skip the next light" or "at the next light/stop sign, turn" rather than just the street name.
- ezfe 4y ago2012 was 10 years ago lol
- foolproofplan 4y agoold joke is old
- alberth 4y agoBox out competition. The title is misleading. The filing doesn’t say Apple will “use” 85%. The actual filing says “Allocate 85% of its current and future network capacity to support the Services (see further discussion of capacity below)” This could simply be that Apple is buying up the bulk of the capacity to box out competitors from offering same functionality. Just like what they do with TSMC.
- wmf 4y agoI'm pretty sure Apple uses the TSMC capacity they pay for. To do otherwise would be financial mismanagement.
- vzaliva 4y agoOn September 7, 2022, Apple Inc. (“Partner”) announced new satellite-enabled services for certain of its products. Where's the announcement?
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- wdb 4y agoWondering how long it will take for it to work outside the Us
- leetrout 4y agoInteresting they will do this but for smaller companies they will not go into contract if they are more than X% of ARR.
- walrus01 4y agoglobalstar as a corporate entity is in such a weak and precarious financial position (due to its near obsolete satellite tech and existing network), with no money to fund the many hundreds of millions needed for a new build+launch campaign, that any partnership of this type is a life saver. without this deal it would be inevitable for the company to get acquired and broken up for just the value of its operating and spectrum licenses.
- pmorici 4y agoApple also appears to be taking an ownership stake in the company so that probably aligns the incentives and reduces the chance of them cutting and running.
- GekkePrutser 4y agoI'm surprised this feature is provided by Globalstar. That network is, as the name says, global so why limit the feature to the US and Canada?
- goalieca 4y agoWell, they need relay services to integrate with the local emergency services
- GekkePrutser 4y agoTrue but that's already available in Europe too. Globalstar spot works in Europe just fine. And it's not just for emergency either, also for find my.
- jacurtis 4y agoActually GlobalStar has some of the weakest satellite coverage in the satellite market. It covers North America and Austrailia very thoroughly. But only covers other continents partially. It covers 3/4 of South America, only western Europe, and only really covers Japan and Singapore in Asia. There is almost no ocean coverage. The Iridium network (which is what Garmin uses) covers nearly everything outside of the north and south poles. This includes all the oceans and basically all habitable land. That is why Iridium has dominated the satellite market for so many years over GlobalStar. Garmin satellite devices (like InReach) uses Iridium. But they also have non-trivial costs associated with that coverage. As someone who has used these satellite communicators for years, don't get your hopes up on using these all the time like an extension of your phone. Sending messages over satellite is painfully slow, even with devices with advanced helix antennas (which the iPhone doesn't have). It can take minutes to send a single text message. Phone communicators sometimes have 20-30+ second lag in them.
- GekkePrutser 4y agoI have InReach and yeah I know it's not fast. It's fine for what it is though. I'm not going to have deep conversations on it. I didn't realize Globalstar was that bad though. I knew it wasn't great due to the bent pipe network which precludes signals far out at sea etc. I've seen several hikers with Spot devices and they didn't seem unhappy with them. Mostly Americans though. But yeah then I can imagine.
- inasio 4y agoReminiscent of how google maps (on cellphones) killed standalone GPS trackers, this may hurt Garmin InReach type devices quite a bit, not that there is a huge market for that in the first place.
- ryeights 4y agoI don’t think this will significantly impact inReach sales. The Globalstar network is not a serious competitor to Iridium for life-critical applications, and inReach-type devices have far wider operating ranges (try sending an SOS from your iPhone when the battery dies in any sort of sub-freezing weather) and much longer battery life.
- jacurtis 4y agoI am curious how the payment of this service works. Apple doesn't mention any additional payment necessary for this feature. But clearly GlobalStar is being compensated heavily by Apple to allocate 85% of their capacity to them. So my question is, who flips the bill? Is Apple paying out of the goodness of their hearts (more realistically as a loss leader to sell more iPhones), or is Apple forcing the carriers like AT&T and Verizon to kick-back a portion of the monthly bill (maybe $1-$2 per user) to GlobalStar for coverage. I suspect it is the latter, which is why we only see this feature available in select markets. Those are probably the markets where Apple has required all its iPhone carriers to agree to this payment. Somehow GlobalStar gets paid and its not coming from the end-users (not directly at least).
- strombofulous 4y agoDuring the announcement apple mentioned that this comes with iphone 14 for free for 2 years. So possibly apple just thinks there's huge opportunity for growth here
- jacurtis 4y agoProbably an incentive for people to upgrade every two years instead of lingering to 3+ years for phone upgrades.
- nicoburns 4y agoPresumably it's included in the cost of the device. They cost several hundreds dollars.
- someguydave 4y agothe announcement says that the SOS feature is only available for free for 2 years after purchase. I am speculating that Apple will bill customers directly for satellite feature subscriptions.
- OrvalWintermute 4y agoSounds like those of us on a 2 year upgrade cycle will get it for free then. However, I'd expect them to roll it into Apple's aggregated services packages too at an economical price, an Apple One Premier + Satellite SOS, if you will.
- supernova87a 4y agoI'm not understanding the math. Globalstar satellites (I assume) are each individually able to transmit/receive dozens-to-hundreds of voice calls. An iPhone is -- and only when out of cellular coverage -- transmitting position or message packet of a few Kb (?) very infrequently via the satellite. Multiply by even a few thousands of iPhones per satellite (if that), how does this equal 85% of satellite capacity?
- vzaliva 4y agoIt they make it transmit nearby AirTags location it would make them much more attractive than competition (Tile).
- lxgr 4y agoIt'd be interesting to know whether this is uplink-only, like most devices of the Spot series of devices on Globalstar, or whether the iPhone can also receive acknowledgements from the satellite. As far as I understand, Globalstar's downlink capacity is (or at least was) severely limited and also uses a different frequency band than their uplink.
- davedunkin 4y agoThe announcement showed a conversation. "Do you have enough water?" "I have half a bottle." Then they talked about some new compression.
- busymom0 4y agoWeren’t those part of the “pre-made” emergency questions they were showing?
- PopFlamingo 4y agoNot 100% sure but I believe there was also other messages like "Help is on its way"
- busymom0 4y agoYou are correct. I rewatched that part and seems like it can send small texts too.
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- lxgr 4y agoThanks, I missed that part of the announcement. That is a very important feature – knowing whether an SOS went through is extremely important in a life-or-death situation (for making the decision of whether to best stay put or try to climb to better signal etc). PLBs are actually gaining that feature as well (by using Galileo as the forward path for the acknowledgement signal) for the same reason.
- hbarka 4y agoI remember when Iridium and Globalstar filed for bankruptcy. How the time spins.
- ShakataGaNai 4y agoCan't imagine that the emergency SOS functionality will use 85% of their network, so it has to be other uses. The Find My functionality certain is one possible use case that they've discusses, but it's not clear when/how that will be used. Might be a "push to send location" manual function (which would take hardly any data), or it could be automagic (sending every X minutes when no cell service available). Though I suspect there is more coming. Once the launch settles down, I wouldn't be surprised that with Apple's announcement of the service cost (beyond the initial free 2 years)... that something like 2 way messaging becomes available. To any iMessage compatible user, of course. As part of the paid feature set.
- acchow 4y ago> or it could be automagic (sending every X minutes when no cell service available). It wouldn't be automatic. If you watch the reveal today, they show how they avoided adding in a satellite antenna: it's communications to a satellite is weak and requires manually holding up the phone pointed at a specific direction (it appears the iPhone keeps an offline copy of ephemeris data so it knows where the satellites are located and can tell you exactly where to point).
- intrasight 4y agoHow are they going to handle abuse? I know that there can be a cost to the user of a physical rescue (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/learning/should-people-who-need-help-from-park-rangers-be-billed-for-the-service.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/learning/should-people-wh...). But will Apple likewise charge users for their "rescue"?
- kristjansson 4y agoThey charge whatever nominal subscription for the message, rescue orgs have their own policies on charging fees after rescue
- Alex7845 4y agoApple is not paying for the rescue. Neither is Garmin when you press the sos button on their phones. Whatever is the cost of insurance for that type of service at Garmin and the dozens of competitors, I can assure you it did not come from the pocket of their CEO. Even if you steal a phone and call for a rescue, whoever did the rescue will get paid regardless of your situation. The insurance company will sue your ass to the grounds, but that's a different discussion.
- intrasight 4y agoI had "rescue" in quotes - to mean not the actual rescue but Apple's part. If millions of naughty teens ask to be "rescued", this is presumably costing Apple in satellite network fees.
- xcskier56 4y agoNext thing Apple should offer is rescue insurance. I have a SPOT X and pay a bit more for rescue insurance if I call through them. SOS button is great, but it’s definitely tempered if that helicopter extraction costs you $30k
- raldi 4y agoLet’s think three moves ahead here. Apple starts off with this good-publicity, peace-of-mind emergency service, gets a bunch of practice testing the technology in real-world situations, iterates and tweaks for a couple years, and then maybe in 2026 there’s a version of the iPhone that can use satellite communication for everyday non-emergency purposes.
- fastball 4y agoEspecially if they get on the Starlink train rather than using Globalstar.
- KoftaBob 4y agoWhen you say everyday non-emergency purposes, do you mean phone calls and full internet access?
- thehappypm 4y agoMaybe iMessage? A phone that can always, 100% of the time get messages out would literally be a lifesaver.