Last week, SpaceX and the US mobile operator T-Mobile announced the availability of Starlink satellite communications for ordinary smartphones. Now a representative of Google has announced that it is working on its own support for satellite communications in the Android operating system.
The news was shared by Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s senior vice president of platforms and ecosystems, who said that during the development of the first Android smartphone (HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1) in 2008, the task was to provide 3G and Wi-Fi, and now the company is „developing communication for satellites“ and the corresponding support is foreseen in the „next version of Android“, which, according to some reports, could appear in the middle or end of 2023.
According to Lockheimer, the new communication option differs from 5G and LTE because the bandwidth of these connections is still very limited – 2-4 Mbit/s per satellite coverage area. In view of this, Elon Musk claims that the bandwidth of the satellite will be able to serve one or two thousand voice calls or hundreds of thousands of text messages simultaneously (their number will depend on their length).
“It’s hard to imagine the feelings of smartphone users who can communicate with satellites. When we launched the G1 in 2008, it was very difficult to get 3G + Wi-Fi to work. We are now developing connectivity for satellites. Awesome! I’m glad we’re supporting our partners to deliver all of this in the next version of Android!” Lockheimer tweeted on September 1.
For now, the smartphone’s ability to communicate with satellites is mainly intended for emergency situations and to eliminate dead spots in cellular coverage. In particular, T-Mobile plans to introduce support for SMS and MMS messages and even individual messaging apps through Starlink. But in the long run, voice calls and transmission of other information will also be possible via satellites. The beta version of the service is expected to be available by the end of 2023.
It is known that SpaceX Starlink supports communication with satellites in already released iPhone and Android devices, but the quality of communication will become much better when additional support is organized at the operating system level.