Very interesting. Several issues would have to be addressed.

1) Would the satellite comms feature use a different frequency range than the device can already use? My current phone is an iPhone 12 Pro, and it has at least five transceivers in it along with at least one GNSS* receiver. Adding another transceiver and likely another antenna would be a significant engineering challenge.

While software defined radio has come a long way and overcome a lot of technical hurdles, mobile antennas are always compromised if they’re to work over a distance of more than 100 yards, and the more frequencies a transceiver antenna is meant to work on, the more compromised it will be.

2) Which satellite communications system would it use? INMARSAT would seem to be ruled out by the article. This makes sense, as those satellites are low bandwidth and would need more power to connect with due to their orbits. Globalstar, Iridium and Starlink would seem to be the obvious choices.

3) How would “major” emergencies be distinguished from others? If I’m hurt in a car wreck, that’s a “major” emergency to me, even if it’s just another day at the office for the first responders.

4) Cost is a concern. Satellite texting service isn’t cheap. Starlink could be the obvious choice here, but the service won’t work for that— truly mobile Starlink communications are on the service’s roadmap but not available yet. I think most people would be unlikely to buy a more expensive service plan to cover rare satellite texting use.

Don’t get me wrong: This is going to happen, and I’m looking forward to it. But I’m thinking it will be several years before it does happen.



(* — GNSS means Global Navigation Satellite System, my iPhone supports systems operated by the USA, EU, Russia, China and Japan. Japan’s system is designed to work regionally. India also operates a regional system that my iPhone does not support.)