Apple’s SOS feature would work better wiyh SpaceX’s Starlink satellites. Just last month, SpaceX and T-Mobile announced a plan called Coverage Above & Beyond that would provide text coverage to users in dead zones.
Coverage Above & Beyond will take a slice of T-Mobile’s mid-band PCS Spectrum and integrate it into Starlink satellites set to launch next year. The service will enter beta next year, starting with text, MMS, and select messaging apps.
Elon said they have had promising conversations with Apple about Starlink connectivity. Closing link from space to phone will work best if phone software & hardware adapt to space-based signals vs Starlink purely emulating cell tower. Dedicated hardware on the phone end could increase signal strength by maximizing battery power used for into satellite texts.
Dedicated hardware could speed up the communication from 2-4 megabits per second and improve the reliability of the transmission.
We’ve had some promising conversations with Apple about Starlink connectivity. iPhone team is obv super smart.
For sure, closing link from space to phone will work best if phone software & hardware adapt to space-based signals vs Starlink purely emulating cell tower.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 8, 2022
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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