Satellite Communication and its Effect on Mobile Phones Usability

Recently, Huawei Mate 50 and Apple iPhone 14, two new models equipped with satellite communication, have caused widespread discussion. When mobile phone innovation is sluggish, consumers are increasingly reluctant to buy new phones since there are no new surprises every year. That is about to change in the year 2022. The new capability of the two models to use mobile phone-satellite communication quickly attracted the attention of many netizens. Now, let’s explore satellite communication and its effect on mobile phones, especially how it will affect sales.

Satellite communication is not a new technology but an extremely mature and widely used one. Satellite communication is directly connected to satellites in space, which can cover all the activities that humans can reach.

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Satellite Communication and its effect on mobile Phones

It is often used in fields such as geological exploration, ocean transportation, and forest patrol. Smartphones equipped with satellite communication functions can also keep in touch with the outside world without a signal in some “information wastelands” such as oceans, deserts, and forests.

In extreme cases, people can send brief distress messages through the satellite communication function of mobile phones.

The smartphones released by the two companies also brought controversy. After all, satellite communication is not a brand-new technology, and there are special satellite phones in the market. These satellite phones have many applications in both military and civilian fields.

There are alternatives in the market, and the satellite communication functions disclosed by the two new mobile phones currently only have basic one-way communication capabilities, so why can they still attract widespread attention and discussion? What are mobile phone manufacturers aiming at?

What Can Satellite Communications in Infancy Bring to Mobile Phone Manufacturers?

The new phones released by Huawei and Apple have stirred up a lot of water. But its mobile phone satellite communication function can only send messages one way and not receive information.

In today’s wide application of satellite phones, why do manufacturers take great pains to realize satellite communication in mobile phones?

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3 Major Reasons Why Phone Manufacturers Are Considering Satellite Communication

To support emergencies. The expansion of mobile phone scenarios has reached a bottleneck period, and it is difficult to gain insight into and expand new scenarios that are in demand. For special scenarios such as ocean communication, oil exploration, scientific research, or emergency rescue activities in remote areas such as sea, forest, and desert, mobile satellite communication can support emergency communication services.
Activate the innovation space of the industrial chain. Facing the 6G era, operators, component manufacturers, equipment manufacturers, and others upstream and downstream of the entire satellite communication industry chain are actively deploying. If mobile phone manufacturers participate, it can activate the chain reaction of the industry. The result of participation or not determines whether it is insulated from the value of satellite communication. The leading mobile phone manufacturers play a leading role in the future development of the mobile satellite communication field.
Occupy the 6G competition point. Of course, mobile phone manufacturers will not stop at upgrading a single function or scene. They focus on the farther, facing the more advanced next-generation communication network – the 6G era. In the industry, there is no precise definition of 6G, but the consensus is basically that the communication indicators of 6G will be 10-100 times higher than that of 5G. Based on 5G, it has expanded from serving people, people, and things to supporting the efficient interconnection of intelligent bodies and achieving seamless global coverage of the integration of space, space, and earth.

The Vision of 6G Network and Potential Relationship With Satellite Communication

One of the visions of 6G is to achieve seamless global coverage of global communications.

However, achieving this goal on the vast earth isn’t easy. For example, building base stations in areas such as large oceans, deserts, and uninhabited regions is neither realistic nor economical.

As the most crucial potential technology in the 6G era, satellite communication is an important supplement to the terrestrial communication network.

Therefore, satellite communication + ground communication can truly achieve a better global coverage experience.

With the possibility of high probability of satellite networking in the 6G era, mobile phone manufacturers deploy satellite communication capabilities in advance to pave the way for the arrival of the 6G era.

Manufacturers Are Desperate To Give Consumers New Innovations

In the increasingly convergent innovation, it is difficult for mobile phone manufacturers to develop innovative products that affect the market structure.

The withering of innovation has caused mobile phone manufacturers to fall into involution, and enterprises urgently need new scenarios and new products to attract users.

With the entry of large companies and the gradual maturity of the satellite communication industry chain, mobile phone manufacturers have rediscovered the application space in satellite communication.

They have also prepared a technical “granary” in advance for entering a new stage of development in the future.

How to Promote the Development of Satellite Communication?

The technical imagination of mobile phone satellite communication comes from the general trend of the aerospace industry. With the continuous progress of aerospace science and technology, the satellite industry has been developed efficiently.

The emergence of multi-satellite launch technology with one arrow and recoverable launch vehicle technology has continuously reduced the cost of deep space exploration.

The cycle of satellite deployment and the cost of development is also reduced. At the same time, the satellite communication system has also been significantly improved compared to the past, and user access, call quality, data transmission, and construction costs have all made significant leaps.

These advances have provided development opportunities for mobile phones to realize satellite communications.

Steps To Be Taken For Mobile Phones To Be Fully Integrated With Satellite Communication

However, entering the industry’s depths requires improving scale coverage, service quality, and experience for mobile satellite communications.

Mobile satellite communication still needs to be continuously advanced, and this process includes four aspects of industrial advancement:

Step 1: The Development of Low-Orbit Satellites

One of the bases for the realization of mobile phone satellite communication function is the development of low-orbit satellite technology.

The communication capabilities that medium and high-orbit satellites can provide are minimal. In contrast, low-orbit satellites can offer higher bandwidth, high-performance global coverage, low latency, and low-cost global interconnection services.

At the same time, because the spectrum resources of satellites are very scarce, applications for low-orbit satellite spectrum and orbital resources follow the principle of “first boarding, first occupying”, and those who register first will have priority. This also means that the development of low-orbit satellites is not only necessary but time-critical.

Step Two: The Improvement of Information Technologies

There is a need to improve information encoding and decoding, data compression, and other technologies.

Due to the limitation of the transmission capacity of satellite communication, it is also necessary to pre-process the transmitted information on the device side to reduce the amount of data transferred. Information encoding and decoding, data compression, and other technologies must be iteratively developed to match the improvement of satellite communication transmission efficiency. For example, in the iPhone 14 released by Apple this time, through a custom short text compression algorithm, the amount of information is reduced by three times to save the transmitted information capacity.

Step 3: Mobile Phone satellite Communication Equipment Parts

The third step is the integrated design and planning of mobile phone satellite communication equipment parts.

For mobile phones, supporting satellite communication capabilities is not a simple application.

Taking antennas as an example, to maintain a good signal, ordinary satellite phones are equipped with long antennas and generally can only be used in unobstructed outdoor scenes.

Supporting satellite communication requires that the antenna has high power and strong anti-interference. This also increases the power consumption of the satellite phone, which requires a large storage battery to supplement the power.

For smartphones, the integrated design of various components is mature, and the redundant space is limited. Adding satellite communication components such as antennas to mature mobile phone equipment challenges the design of mobile phone integration.

To increase the satellite communication function, it is necessary to design and plan the deployment of various satellite communication components on the mobile phone terminal and further balance power consumption and communication capabilities.

Step 4: Industrial Ecology

The fourth step is to mature the industrial ecology. The final presentation of the satellite communication function of mobile phones requires the coordination of mobile phone manufacturers, operators, software and hardware application ecology, policies, and other parties so that the value of the satellite communication function of mobile phones can be truly appraised.

For example, in China communications industry implements a licensing system. Only a few operators, such as China Satcom and China Telecom, hold licenses for satellite communications services.

The business operation of mobile phone satellite communication needs to cooperate with operators.

In the future, it is the general trend that mobile phones will connect to satellite communications. Connecting low-orbit communication satellites, information compression technology, and the coordination of various industries, this gradual exploration and continuous improvement measures jointly lay a solid foundation for the arrival of the 6G era.

In the future, the industrial ecology and business model of mobile phone satellite communication must also be sketched out a little bit.

Possible Changes in the Business Model

At this stage, the development of satellite communications still requires a lot of investment. In the long run, the accessible satellite communication business model is unsustainable, and a significant change is bound to occur.

Designing a sustainable business model so that the mobile phone satellite communication industry can develop healthily and orderly is also important.

In the future, the business model of satellite communication may have the following changes.

For the C-side, in the post-market education era, in some special extreme scenarios, simple positioning and calling for help may still be free.

As Huawei’s strategy is now, there will be multiple opportunities to use the help function for free monthly. However, more detailed images, videos, and other content-rich transmissions are more likely to be based on the pricing idea of a single charge.

After mobile phone satellite communication becomes more common, the large-scale application will dilute the cost, various applications will become more and more abundant, and the price will be closer to the people.

However, there are also many uncertainties in the changing process of charging and pricing, which may be affected by changes in business formats such as operators, supply chains, and mobile phone manufacturers’ development ecology. However, the era of mobile satellite communication with rich applications and good experience will still take a long time to “cultivate”.

For the B-side, some special services, such as ocean fishing, oil exploration, ocean shipping, and other scenarios, have become the main force and value feedback method for the next stage of satellite communications.

These areas with functional needs for satellite networks can empower different services and enhance commercial value with mobile phone satellite communications. And this requires mobile satellite communication to form more solutions that integrate with the industry, clarify the difference between itself and satellite phones, and build a moat for the B-end market.

On the operator side, satellite communications will bring far-reaching changes. The continuous development of terrestrial communication networks has led to increasing base stations.

Summary and Conclusion

Whether it is a new base station or operation and maintenance, cost and carbon emission pressure are flaws that cannot be ignored. Facing the shortage of spectrum resources and the surge in network construction costs, the future 6G network will most likely include satellite communications.

I rely on low-orbit satellite networking to build mobile coverage that integrates space. Space and ground are one of the core development directions of operators in the agreement stage. At the current stage, it is actively exploring satellite communication services and enhancing related investment, which is more in line with the commercial needs of operators.

Don’t worry; no matter what the business model changes, satellite communications regarding humanitarian assistance will be free for a long time.

Facing 6G, it is inevitable for the mobile phone industry to start exploring satellite communications. We can gain a leading edge in future competition by deploying soon.

With a high probability, 6G will realize the network construction of integrating space, space, and ground. Equipped with satellite communication functions will also become necessary for future mobile phones.

Smartphones in the future, whether simple emergency help functions or richer information transmission and interaction, can be realized through satellite communication. Although this goal requires trekking and waiting for a long time, the wind direction of the industry has already blown, and giants have jumped into it.

In the long term, systematic changes in the satellite communication industry may occur in mobile phones. The satellite communication function in the smartphone is like a butterfly flapping its wings, which may start a chain reaction in the satellite communication industry. One change after another is like the meshing of gears, driving the industry’s continuous renewal and evolution.