Enlarge (credit: Qualcomm)
Hey, Android users! Are you jealous of the iPhone 14's ability to connect to satellites? Well, it's been a few months, and Qualcomm is already getting a similar feature up and running on Android. Meet "Snapdragon Satellite" a way to send satellite messages from a normal-sized Android phone. Unlike on the iPhone, this is real, two-way, SMS-style texting that you'll supposedly be able to use for more casual conversations instead of the iPhone's highly compressed, emergency-only, one-way questionnaire system that discourages composing a message.
Qualcomm's solution will run on the Iridium satellite constellation—this is the 25-year-old, 66-satellite network that powers traditional, purpose-built satellite phones with giant external antennas. Qualcomm says this is now going to work with normal-sized smartphones and with normal, internal-only antennas. Qualcomm's VP of Product Management, Francesco Grilli, gave a big overview of the service and says "in most cases" you won't even need a new antenna. Iridium runs in the 1-2 GHz L Band, the same as GPS and some mid-band cellular service, so your phone already has an antenna for this.
That's not to say it will work without any new hardware, but Qualcomm will build it into its standard RF loadout without requiring any major new components. This is a great situation compared to mmWave 5G, which added a big, extra, expensive antenna to your phone that very few people can use.
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