2023-11-14 15:30:00
While everything seemed to be going well to establish a new means of communication via satellite for the general public’s mobile phones, Qualcomm has just ended the collaboration contract linking the American company to Iridium, meaning that we will certainly have to wait a little longer. with being able to exchange via satellite for mobiles running Android.
A recent announcement has just shaken the smartphone industry. It concerns satellite communications. In fact, the company American Qualcomm would have abruptly ended its partnership with Iridium, the company specializing in the constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit. This would cause a significant delay in the ability for Android mobiles to benefit from two-way communications. This partnership aimed to bring two-way satellite connectivity to Android smartphones, thus providing the possibility of emergency communication even in the absence of cellular network. Earlier this year, Qualcomm generated excitement by announcing Snapdragon Satellite, an innovative technology that allows phones to send and receive messages in emergencies. However, This feature does not appear to be included in future phones equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. Iridium claimed in a press release to have successfully developed this technology in collaboration with Qualcomm, but phone brands that chose the American chip did not integrate the functionality in their devices, leading to the termination of the agreement.
An under-exploited Soc, but everything is not over
Indeed, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, which integrates Snapdragon Satellite, can only be enabled on phones with additional antenna hardware. Qualcomm told CNBC that smartphone brands prefer to go with standard two-way satellite connectivity, not wanting to use Qualcomm’s proprietary technology. However, the company will continue to collaborate with Iridium to develop a common standard for this functionality.
This partnership break also opens the possibility for Iridium to collaborate directly with other industry players, such as smartphone brands, chipset manufacturers, and operating system developers. This new situation might potentially diversify the options available on the market.
At the same time, rumors regarding the two-way satellite communication of Samsung’s Galaxy S23 turned out to be false. Samsung MX CEO TM Roh explained that the ecosystem was not yet sufficiently mature to integrate this functionality. However, Samsung is not left behind, having developed its own two-way satellite connectivity technology. This innovation is expected to debut in the next Exynos modem, with heightened expectations for the Galaxy S24, which might be Samsung’s first phone to offer two-way satellite connectivity for use in emergency situations. Remember that this is already the case for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 15.
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