Space internet with Android 14! (Satellite connectivity)

[Senzelian]

Google’s Senior Vice President of Platforms & Ecosystems, Hiroshi Lockheimer, tweeted about supporting Google's partners in enabling satellite connectivity on Android 14. Just last week SpaceX and T-Mobile announced that they're working on bringing satellite connectivity directly to smartphones.

 

 

Quote

Last week, SpaceX and T-Mobile announced that it would bring direct satellite connectivity to smartphones, and Google said today the next version of Android (14) will “support our partners in enabling all of this.”

 

This development comes from Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s Senior Vice President of Platforms & Ecosystems, this morning, who recounted how it “was a stretch to get 3G + Wifi working” on the first shipping Android phone (HTC Dream / T-Mobile G1) in 2008. 

The Android team is now “designing for satellites” and this support is planned for the “next version of Android,” which Google confirmed to us as Android 14. That OS release should arrive in mid-to-late-2023. 

 

 

My thoughts

Now I'm interested in Starlink. Depending on how well this would actually work it could be interesting as either a backup solution or to fill in rural spots, in which LTE connectivity is simply not available. Maybe it is also interesting as a replacement for satellite phones? But I assume that the speed and reliability will be severely worse than with a conventional dish.

 

Sources

https://9to5google.com/2022/09/01/android-14-satellite-support/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter

[Alex Atkin UK]

Should do wonders for battery life.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think its a great idea to have in an emergency if you're stuck with no coverage otherwise.  But to use on a daily basis its a terrible idea.

 

I'd also imagine its going to be outlawed in aggressive censorship countries.

[strajk-]

They're already having massive issues due to too many people using Starlink in certain geographic locations, causing speeds to be under 1mbps which nowadays is unuseable and slower than whatever overpriced landline offers in the same location. 

 

This coming to phones would just make the issue scale even harder, can't wait for the shitstorm.

[Donut417]

4 hours ago, strajk- said:

They're already having massive issues due to too many people using Starlink in certain geographic locations, causing speeds to be under 1mbps which nowadays is unuseable and slower than whatever overpriced landline offers in the same location. 

 

This coming to phones would just make the issue scale even harder, can't wait for the shitstorm.

Depends on how its implemented. Sure DATA services would suck. But if it would allow voice communication it could be good. I can tell you from personal experience that telecoms like T Mobile have holes in their network. I mean I live in the Detroit Metro area and there are areas here with little to no T Mobile coverage. 

[wanderingfool2]

10 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Should do wonders for battery life.

Works on the same frequency, so your phone won't have to send out any stronger of a signal than it currently does.  The only thing is that it requires a special integration with IOS and Android to allow it as only a backup network.  The bulk of the work is done on the satellite side of things.

 

9 hours ago, strajk- said:

They're already having massive issues due to too many people using Starlink in certain geographic locations, causing speeds to be under 1mbps which nowadays is unuseable and slower than whatever overpriced landline offers in the same location. 

 

This coming to phones would just make the issue scale even harder, can't wait for the shitstorm.

The way T-Mobile and Starlink work it would be 4mbps across each coverage zone.  At least at the moment it's not being targeted for data; but rather emergency calls and texts (with it starting with texts first).  Even at 4mbps, that would be capable of simple text messages for tens of thousands of people (or 80 calls).

 

That is just the beta though and a per sat. basis.  If it works, and they are able to get more spectrum from more providers that could mean a lot more bandwidth for areas that would currently be dead zones.  Add in a bit of additional hardware (with different frequencies) and you might be able to get even better performance.

 

Overall this is a wait and see sort of thing.  Without Starship they won't be able to even launch the Starlink v2 sats. into orbit at the rate/cost they need.  The first flight of Starship is still at least a month out at best, more likely early 2023....and that assumes it doesn't end up blowing up on the pad (because if it blows up on the pad it will effectively stop the development of it for a really long time given the area it has to launch from)

 

  

4 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Depends on how its implemented. Sure DATA services would suck. But if it would allow voice communication it could be good. I can tell you from personal experience that telecoms like T Mobile have holes in their network. I mean I live in the Detroit Metro area and there are areas here with little to no T Mobile coverage. 

From my understanding you will still need a line of sight, or close to a line of sight for it to work.  So within a building or a metro area you are unlikely getting it to work.

 

The practical example of where this is beneficial is if you are out camping and your vehicle breaks down, out hunting and want to check in with family, road tripping and needing to communicate about arrival time, or if you are out hiking and break your ankle...similar things like that.  Ultimately most people won't have a purpose for it, but it's that one or two times that you might use it in your life that you are thankful of having it.

[Doobeedoo]

Well it could be comforting to be able to have signal literally anywhere for emergency. Can't complain there.

[Alex Atkin UK]

8 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Works on the same frequency, so your phone won't have to send out any stronger of a signal than it currently does.  The only thing is that it requires a special integration with IOS and Android to allow it as only a backup network.  The bulk of the work is done on the satellite side of things.

Frequency is only part of it, you cannot defy the laws of physics where distance directly correlates to attenuation of the signal.  The further you want it to go, the more power you need at both ends.  Otherwise you could just stick cell towers on the top of mountains and have blanket coverage.

 

Have you not seen how much power a Starlink dish uses?  Yes using a lower frequency would reduce that, but were still talking orders of magnitude more than to a land-based cell tower.

 

Also, have you seen the size of antennas on traditional satellite phones?  I'm sure low earth orbit satellites helps, but there is only so much you can compensate if this is going to have a tiny antenna embedded into the phone.  Not to mention that low earth orbit satellite networks are not economical and this is just a desperate attempt to reduce Starlink haemorrhaging money because of that.

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Frequency is only part of it, you cannot defy the laws of physics where distance directly correlates to attenuation of the signal.  The further you want it to go, the more power you need at both ends.  Otherwise you could just stick cell towers on the top of mountains and have blanket coverage.

Actually that's wrong.  First, the v2 sats are huge, so will have a large antenna on it (I think it was stated 6 meters).  Second, you don't see a single cell tower on lets say a mountain to get huge coverage because a large service area means nothing if it gets shared over massive amounts of people (thus this is only being used for deadzone areas and more situated for emergencies).  The next, I already addressed that it's not like you get a ton of bandwidth from it (compared to regular cell towers)

 

Plus, they literally said it will be utilizing the same frequency in order to get compatibility with existing phones, which have the same power limits as they currently do.  So no to "it sucks battery life" claim you are making.

 

2 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Not to mention that low earth orbit satellite networks are not economical and this is just a desperate attempt to reduce Starlink haemorrhaging money because of that.

Just like how people claimed EV's weren't economical or landing rocket boosters weren't economical.  Until you hit scale, it's not exactly fair to say it's not economical.  Also, it's hard to know the cost and revenue on a private company.

[bcredeur97]

On 9/3/2022 at 2:31 PM, Alex Atkin UK said:

Should do wonders for battery life.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think its a great idea to have in an emergency if you're stuck with no coverage otherwise.  But to use on a daily basis its a terrible idea.

 

I'd also imagine its going to be outlawed in aggressive censorship countries.

I could see it disabling the radio UNLESS no other radio is available. 

Musk I believe had previously said it would only be for basic services like calls/texts for now. At least with the deal they made with T-Mobile.

[Alex Atkin UK]

5 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Just like how people claimed EV's weren't economical or landing rocket boosters weren't economical.  Until you hit scale, it's not exactly fair to say it's not economical.  Also, it's hard to know the cost and revenue on a private company.

EVs aren't economical, if you factor in replacing the batteries and take away carbon credits, etc. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/31/investing/tesla-profitability/index.html

 

If you look at things like SpaceX, Tesla, etc they are only viable due to government money.  Sooner or later that money will dry up, what then?

Also the whole carbon-neutral thing is a huge scam where companies which inherently have low or zero emissions can sell their credits to companies with large emissions, so they can claim themselves carbon-neutral.  Its all smoke and mirrors as actual emissions continue to rise rather than reduce.

 

Quote

Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose by 6% in 2021 to 36.3 billion tonnes, their highest ever level, as the world economy rebounded strongly from the Covid-19 crisis and relied heavily on coal to power that growth, according to new IEA analysis released today.8 Mar 2022

In actual emissions, its better for the environment to run a gas vehicle than electric, as you use more of the energy vs electric where you lose some in generation, some in transmission, some in charging, some in battery losses, some in the motors.

[wanderingfool2]

26 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

EVs aren't economical, if you factor in replacing the batteries and take away carbon credits, etc. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/31/investing/tesla-profitability/index.html

 

If you look at things like SpaceX, Tesla, etc they are only viable due to government money.  Sooner or later that money will dry up, what then?

That story is misleading, all one had to do is look at the balance sheet to know it's not as black and white as that article is saying. Tesla was getting regulatory credits but that doesn't mean that without them they wouldn't be profitable.  The biggest thing you seem to miss is that you are basing it off of 2020 numbers, even 2021 and 2022 numbers decimate that argument.  They have been limited by the amount of vehicles they produce e.g. Selling a $50k vehicle where $10k is regulatory credits and assuming that without regulatory credits they would be selling it for $40k; which isn't true.

 

The government needs sats. launched and they are going towards bidding processes.  SpaceX is coming in at the lowest bid.  You can cry foul all you want, but if it wasn't for SpaceX there would be no non-controversial way of getting to the ISS.  Soon enough there won't be any other legal way to get a large payload into space if you ignore SpaceX (with the banning of certain rockets).

 

The fact is you made a claim that it will severly drain the battery life, and in the presentations themselves it says otherwise.  All you have shown is the ability to regurgitate what you have seen on the news [who themselves just went for the clickbait titles]

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

The fact is you made a claim that it will severly drain the battery life, and in the presentations themselves it says otherwise.  All you have shown is the ability to regurgitate what you have seen on the news [who themselves just went for the clickbait titles]

I'm by no means a radio expert, but from the basic knowledge I do have I do not see how they can achieve that.  The greater the distance, the more power you need, its basic physics.  Starlink Dishy can push up to 4W and while yes were talking much less bandwidth and lower frequencies here, you also have a smaller antenna so less gain.

 

Also claims like:

Quote

with just “two to four megabits of bandwidth per cellular zone,”

and

Quote

“one to two thousand simultaneous voice calls"

 

A voice call over 2Kbit?  I think not.

 

Now 2000 cells connected but not making calls, fair enough, but you need at LEAST 8Kbit for a barely passable voice call.  Granted, where you will most need this there should be very few users connected, but Elon Musk must always massively exaggerate everything he is involved in.  Over-promise, under-deliver is his MO.

[Donut417]

41 minutes ago, Caroline said:

2023: You can [not] escape Google's surveillance.

You can if you use an iPhone. So instead of Google's surveillance Ill be under Apple's surveillance. Also you cant forget the NSA's surveillance. 

[ouroesa]

3 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

In actual emissions, its better for the environment to run a gas vehicle than electric, as you use more of the energy vs electric where you lose some in generation, some in transmission, some in charging, some in battery losses, some in the motors.

You might want to fact check that.

Internal combustion engines are only ~25-40% efficient whereas electric vehicles are ~80%. 
The break even point is generally around 10,000miles after which the EV becomes the better option, including manufacturing. This does depend on what you campare and where you get your electricity from (coal/gas vs nuclear/wind/hydro/solar)

 

Anyhow, this tech will be really usefull for us Australians as there are vast areas with no reception and people get lost in the outback more than you would think. Just being able ot send a text would already be a win, making a call would be ideal, anything more would be a nice to have. Even we are able to use the data to update maps or somthing similar, it would help a lot in certain situations. 
 

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

The greater the distance, the more power you need, its basic physics.  Starlink Dishy can push up to 4W and while yes were talking much less bandwidth and lower frequencies here, you also have a smaller antenna so less gain.

Again, having larger and more sensitive antenna.  It also matters less for the phone end, because sats. aren't as limited to the amount of power they can pump towards a single point.  It could mean they can send a signal that your phone will be able to easily pick up on.

 

You are also comparing two very different types of technologies that is happening dishy vs mobile.  There's a reason why it dishy can achieve such good speeds (and have multiple people).

 

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Now 2000 cells connected but not making calls, fair enough, but you need at LEAST 8Kbit for a barely passable voice call.  Granted, where you will most need this there should be very few users connected, but Elon Musk must always massively exaggerate everything he is involved in.  Over-promise, under-deliver is his MO.

Again, it gets back to what the presentation material was.  While it's mentioned supporting potentially thousands of calls, notice how they mention that the service will be starting with lower bandwidth capabilities.  Then working up higher.  I'm betting that the 2-4 mbps will be an initially estimate that they hope will be able to be expanded upon...or you know, they might have been talking about 2-4mbps per cell zone, but 1000's of calls per sat...as each sat. should be able to create artifical cell zones.

 

Although if at 4mbps they should be able to host at 200 voice calls...although with that said as well, apparently with some codecs you can get away with 2 kbps as a way for understandable human calls.  (Not really good quality but enough in an emergency)

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 hours ago, ouroesa said:

Internal combustion engines are only ~25-40% efficient whereas electric vehicles are ~80%.

I've looked at some of the counter-arguments which claim the "gas is better" is wrong and so far none of them have taken into account the wasted energy from the weight of the batteries which is far far heavier than a tank of gas.

Plus like you said, it depends how the energy was generated.  There is no denying that electric is terrific if you are charging from your own solar array.  Although there are still issues around recycling old solar panels too but I suspect we'll figure that one out.

Don't get me wrong, if I had a car I would much rather it was electric for the performance, noise, ride quality (I've ridden in a few Ubers using hybrids and they seem really nice) and not polluting where I am driving.  But just making it "someone elses problem" by polluting at the power station is problematic, unless we get more nuclear, though that's still pulling more minerals out of the earth so how sustainable is it?  We still have a way to go with renewables unfortunately.

 

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

they might have been talking about 2-4mbps per cell zone, but 1000's of calls per sat...as each sat. should be able to create artifical cell zones.

 

Although if at 4mbps they should be able to host at 200 voice calls...although with that said as well, apparently with some codecs you can get away with 2 kbps as a way for understandable human calls.  (Not really good quality but enough in an emergency)

Yeah, you kinda need to know what area a cell zone covers to make any sense of it.

 

I just fear that in an emergency it could prove next to useless due to poor call quality, though I suppose it might be enough to get a GPS lock on the caller and trigger emergency services, so definitely useful if so.   Then there is the potential space junk problem.  SpaceX claim its all good, but we all know things go wrong and once they do it could set off a chain reaction that cannot be fixed and at the risk of eventually losing ALL satellites, it seems an awfully big one.

[wanderingfool2]

27 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Yeah, you kinda need to know what area a cell zone covers to make any sense of it.

 

I just fear that in an emergency it could prove next to useless due to poor call quality, though I suppose it might be enough to get a GPS lock on the caller and trigger emergency services, so definitely useful if so.   Then there is the potential space junk problem.  SpaceX claim its all good, but we all know things go wrong and once they do it could set off a chain reaction that cannot be fixed and at the risk of eventually losing ALL satellites, it seems an awfully big one.

Yea, that's why I think the focus is on text messages/similar at the moment.  An sms message is only 140 bytes.  GPS coordinates are pretty small as well.  If you assume storing 2 doubles for GPS coordinates that is only 16 bytes needed to send out; plus of course overhead of everything...but it should be pretty small the overhead as well.

 

For starlink a more valid concern is over the brightness of the sats.  They can mess up astronomy.  The spacejunk problem is a lot less so for starlink...they are in very LEO in well known orbits.  If they were to fail, their orbit decays in less than 5 years (iirc).  If there was a collision at that level (which likely would be another failing sat. causing it) then there would be some debris that is shot into a higher orbit, but overall it's not as doom and gloom as some want to make it out to be.

 

Like it should be noted, if something catastrophic happens we might lose the ability to safely launch new sats for a while (but still could launch but just at a higher risk).  The sats. that most people think of like GPS and such wouldn't be affected though.

 

Most countries have actually shot out higher orbit sats before, which is a lot more cause for concern than the lower orbit ones.

 

Again, this all hinges no Starship though, if Starship fails to launch correctly (i.e. blows up on pad) then we likely won't be seeing this for at least a couple more years ontop of this.

[saltycaramel]

So, coincidentally, in the 2 weeks leading up to Apple's big announcement of their mass-deployed (i.e.: to millions of iPhone 14 users in the coming weeks) satellite-based service, everybody (Elon, T-mobile, this Android exec, etc.) goes "satellite satellite satellite satellite.."...curious huh? With no product ready for at least 12 months at that, they're just thinking out loud, coincidentally in these 2 very weeks. What a coincidence.

 

It's almost like they're preempting something and trying to make it look they were "First!" (like an annoying youtube comment) at something. 

[wanderingfool2]

22 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

It's almost like they're preempting something and trying to make it look they were "First!" (like an annoying youtube comment) at something. 

Honestly, it's a whole collaborative thing I think.  I can't be bothered looking through the event talk, but I do believe they talked about being in talks with Apple/Google to add support for this into the OS's (as it will still need OS support).

 

I mean this has been guessed about for a while now, back in July Starlink and T-Mobile filed with the FCC pretty much exactly what was announced.  The fact that Android has released this, and Apple planned an even around this doesn't surprise me. The NDA clauses in the contract are likely ending.

[mr moose]

4 hours ago, saltycaramel said:

It's almost like they're preempting something and trying to make it look they were "First!" (like an annoying youtube comment) at something. 

The whole industry has been working on it.  Neither apple, google nor elon are trying to take credit for anything here.

[saltycaramel]

If some companies (like Apple and Globalstar) will go to market with this feature in fall 2022 and some other companies on the other hand will go to market in winter 2024, I'll draw my personal conclusions about who was actually on top of this first and who on the other hand was just shouting "FIRST!". 

 

Not that it super matters in the long run. (well apparently it matters to Elon, T-mobile and this Google exec eager to "mark their territory" with vaporware-speak mere days before Apple's actual product announcement)

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, saltycaramel said:

If some companies (like Apple and Globalstar) will go to market with this feature in fall 2022 and some other companies on the other hand will go to market in winter 2024, I'll draw my personal conclusions about who was actually on top of this first and who on the other hand was just shouting "FIRST!". 

 

Not that it super matters in the long run. (well apparently it matters to Elon, T-mobile and this Google exec eager to "mark their territory" with vaporware-speak mere days before Apple's actual product announcement)

You say it doesn't matter who was first, but your only input to this thread was to claim apple had it first and the others are just after some credit or glory or whatever it is you think they are seeking.

 

Like all tech advancements, not only is it rare for a single company to be the first, but it doesn't even matter who was the first if another company comes along and makes it better.

 

. EDIT: for anyone interested, it has been rumored that apple had satellite shit ready to go for iphone13 but failed to establish a deal with carriers to actually get it working.  Where google is working with carriers first so there is a service and protocol in place for when the hardware is ready to be shipped.

[Mihle]

On 9/5/2022 at 6:52 AM, Alex Atkin UK said:

*Snip*

You don't need to include the weight of an electric car to know how much it energy it uses and what it pollutes, you just have to look at the hole chain, if you know how much you charged it with, and know how far it has gone on that power, whatever weight it has is included.

 

But what he says is true, EVs do pollute less than gas cars over the long run.

Public transport is better than both tho.

[saltycaramel]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

You say it doesn't matter who was first, but your only input to this thread was to claim apple had it first and the others are just after some credit or glory or whatever it is you think they are seeking.

 

Like all tech advancements, not only is it rare for a single company to be the first, but it doesn't even matter who was the first if another company comes along and makes it better.

You are conflating the generic concept of “tech advancement” with me being amused by the specific timing of some public remarks about satellite service for mobile phones, a circumstance that I find amusing in any case, no matter whether I believe it or not that it’s important to establish who got there first.

 

These generic remarks (to the tune of “how cool would it be!” by the Google exec or “we’ll kinda have a beta ready by late 2023” by Elon) might as well be made last July or June or next October or November, since they have no product ready and they won’t go to market for a long while. But, lo and behold, they made these comments mere days before Apple’s (supposed) announcement, to steal Apple’s thunder. 

 

Keep living in your world of innocence where companies (including Apple) don’t carefully plan the timing of announcements and don’t manipulate/optimize public perception. I’ll keep being amused by some instances of this far fetched vaporware style of communication, especially when the timing is suspicious.

 

Btw industry commenter Tim Farrar implied the preemptive nature of such announcements well before I did

 

https://twitter.com/TMFAssociates/status/1562967341347901440?s=20&t=z-KBzOT5L_hSmuk5QY057g

 

[mr moose]

19 hours ago, saltycaramel said:

You are conflating the generic concept of “tech advancement” with me being amused by the specific timing of some public remarks about satellite service for mobile phones, a circumstance that I find amusing in any case, no matter whether I believe it or not that it’s important to establish who got there first.

 

These generic remarks (to the tune of “how cool would it be!” by the Google exec or “we’ll kinda have a beta ready by late 2023” by Elon) might as well be made last July or June or next October or November, since they have no product ready and they won’t go to market for a long while. But, lo and behold, they made these comments mere days before Apple’s (supposed) announcement, to steal Apple’s thunder. 

 

Keep living in your world of innocence where companies (including Apple) don’t carefully plan the timing of announcements and don’t manipulate/optimize public perception. I’ll keep being amused by some instances of this far fetched vaporware style of communication, especially when the timing is suspicious.

 

Btw industry commenter Tim Farrar implied the preemptive nature of such announcements well before I did

 

https://twitter.com/TMFAssociates/status/1562967341347901440?s=20&t=z-KBzOT5L_hSmuk5QY057g

 

you know satellite connected smart phones have been a thing for several years now don't you?  In fact there is already android powered satellite phones on the market.

 

Not sure why you think it is such a big deal to try and make it about apple.

 

https://satellitephonestore.com/catalog/sale/details/thuraya-x5-touch-satellite-phone