4 ms·
I 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 co
by jacurtis 4y ago
I 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.
- alwillis 4y agoI agree; that’s probably how they’re going to proceed.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- alwillis 4y agoIs Apple paying out of the goodness of their hearts (more realistically as a loss leader to sell more iPhones) Apple doesn’t do loss leaders. What if a small percentage of Apple’s service revenue has been set aside for this very reason? A quick check of the latest financial statements shows Apple’s service revenue through 3 quarters was about $60 billion. I think you can pay for satellite bandwidth with that kind of money. ;-)