Native support for satellite communication will appear in Android 14
Last week, SpaceX and the American mobile operator T-Mobile announced the availability of Starlink satellite communication for ordinary smartphones. Now, a representative of Google announced the work on innate support for communication with satellites in the Android operating system.
The news was shared by Google’s Senior Vice President of Platforms and Ecosystems, Hiroshi Lockheimer, who stated that when developing the first Android smartphone (HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1) in 2008, the task was to ensure the operation of 3G and Wi-Fi, and now the company is ‘developing communication for satellites’ and the corresponding support is already provided by the ‘next version of Android’, the release of which, according to some sources, may take place in the middle or at the end of 2023.
According to Lockheimer, the new communication option differs from 5G and LTE, as the bandwidth of such connections is still very limited and amounts to 2-4 Mbit/s for the entire satellite coverage area. Taking this into account, Elon Musk stated that the bandwidth to the satellite will be able to simultaneously provide one to two thousand voice calls or the transmission of hundreds of thousands of text messages (the number will depend on their length).
‘It is difficult to imagine the feelings of smartphone users who are able to communicate with satellites. When we launched the G1 in 2008, it was very difficult to get 3G+Wi-Fi working. Now we are developing communication satellites. Cool! Excited to support our partners in enabling all of this in the next version of Android!” Lockheimer tweeted on September 1.
So far, the possibility of connecting a smartphone with satellites is designed mainly for emergency situations and for the elimination of ‘blind spots’ in cellular coverage. In particular, T-Mobile plans to use Starlink to implement support for SMS and MMS messages and even individual messenger applications. But in the long term, voice calls and the transmission of other information will become possible through satellites. The beta version of the service is expected to be available at the end of 2023.
It is known that support for communication with SpaceX Starlink satellites is available in iPhone and Android devices already released, but the quality of communication will become much higher when additional support is organized at the level of the operating system.
