One of the major new features of the iPhone 14 was “Satellite Emergency SOS.” In normal use, smartphones have a hard time connecting to things as far away as satellites, but with the help of aiming apps, it is possible to transmit small amounts of data under ideal conditions. Apple turned this into a way to send messages to emergency services even when you’re off the grid, and the Android ecosystem quickly started copying the feature. Qualcomm’s “Snapdragon Satellite” was announced in January 2023, and now, 10 months later, there are no customers and the plan has been scrapped.
Iridium, Qualcomm’s satellite partner in this project, announced Although the press release announced the dissolution of the partnership, Qualcomm said it hopes to work with Iridium on future projects. Iridium wrote:
Iridium previously announced an agreement with Qualcomm to enable satellite messaging and emergency services on smartphones powered by the Snapdragon mobile platform using Iridium’s satellite network. Companies have successfully developed and demonstrated this technology. However, despite this technological success, smartphone manufacturers have not included this technology in their devices. For this reason, November 3, 2023Qualcomm has notified Iridium that it has elected to effectively terminate the agreement. December 3, 2023.
Essentially, the project is dying because Qualcomm couldn’t get a single Android manufacturer to add satellite messaging to their phones. Qualcomm’s satellite solution did not require much new hardware, so the rejection was clearly due to Qualcomm’s feature design and (possibly) additional charges added to the bill of materials. In a statement given to CNBCQualcomm said the smartphone maker has “demonstrated a preference for standards-based solutions” when it comes to satellite-to-phone connectivity, and the company now wants to pivot to this plan.
Since Snapdragon Satellite hasn’t been released yet, it’s hard to say exactly how the “standards-based” platform differs from Snapdragon Satellite, but we can make some guesses. Qualcomm and Iridium’s solution used the proprietary Iridium protocol, similar to many satellite phones with large antennas. An alternative is the 3GPP standard “5G NTN” (Non-Terrestrial Network) used in devices such as the Motorola Satellite Link (which is powered by a MediaTek chip and connects to Inmarsat satellites). Qualcomm’s January press release stated that “Snapdragon Satellite is scheduled to support 5G non-terrestrial networks (NTN) as NTN satellite infrastructure and constellations become available,” adding that promised support.Qualcomm already offers several products 5G NTN project to go.
The original press release made it seem like the project was a standards-compliant, two-way SMS, stating that “Snapdragon Satellite provides truly global coverage from polar region to polar region, emergency use, and SMS text messaging. , and can support two-way messaging for other messaging applications.” But Qualcomm showed photos of a Qualcomm-branded messaging app with its own address book, message list, and targeting system, which was certainly out of the ordinary. Usually, Android manufacturers prefer to rebrand and credit upstream his Qualcomm or Google features.
The competing Motorola Satellite Link is do not have To send SMS, senders and recipients must use their own apps. It’s anyone’s guess how billing will work with Qualcomm’s solution, but Motorola’s Hotspot requires an additional monthly subscription of $5 to $30 per month, or $60 per year.
Speaking of Google, the Android team is also working on building a satellite API into the Android phone stack. This project was originally announced for Android 14, but Couldn’t make it to the final screening. It could be released quarterly, but it doesn’t seem that far off at this point. Whatever Qualcomm’s solution ends up being, his deep-rooted envy of Apple in the Android ecosystem should keep the work going.