Apple has a secret team working on internet satellites
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
1) No more carriers. They get a consistent, high margin monthly revenue stream, can have one worldwide SKU and can let illegal imports take care of situations where there has been the potential for bans e.g. patents or Russia.
2) No more dealing with Qualcomm and 5/6G standards bodies and having them dictate where the industry goes.
3) Further ties customers to Apple in a world where its getting harder to differentiate on hardware features alone. Instead they can differentiate on the network e.g. no more roaming charges and offer unique bundles e.g. ATV+ with Apple Internet. And good luck with smaller players being able to launch their own satellite.
4) No more dealing with foreign governments blocking websites, demanding apps be installed, intercepting traffic and by extension far less jailing and killing of dissidents, minorities, journalists etc.
5) Apple owns the total experience. It's just you and Apple.
This doesn't really work. If you've looked at some of the calculations for SpaceX's constellation (probably the highest bandwidth one proposed so far), it is completely insufficient for even medium sized cities.
There is also a question of what sort of antenna the phones will use to connect with the satellites. My understanding is that modern sat phones are pretty low bandwidth and aren't really the sleak and slim design we've come to expect from Apple.
> can let illegal imports take care of situations where there is the potential for bans e.g. patents or Russia.
Probably not possible either. They're going to need plenty of base stations, which are easy to ban with court order.
> 2) No more dealing with Qualcomm and 5/6G standards bodies and having them dictate where the industry goes.
We'll see. If the problem is with patents instead of technical ability then this will be easier than I expect.
> 4) No more dealing with foreign governments blocking websites, demanding apps be installed, intercepting traffic and by extension far less jailing and killing of dissidents, minorities, journalists etc.
Again, they're going to need base stations. The parts of the world that regularly do that stuff are usually pretty poor, which means pretty low iPhone penetration.
If Apple can pull this off, it'd be great for them. I'm not very optimistic.
The explanation could be as simple as: they have huge piles of cash and don't know what to do with them. Satellite internet (for busses and bigger) seems like a decent use for it. It's true that SpaceX is ahead and has cheaper launch prices than anyone, but Apple might believe they can just outspend everyone else.
Base stations help, but aren't required.
Are you suggesting that no person with an iPhone ever makes/takes a call with a non-iPhone user?
That's a fantastically crazy idea, in a good way
Just because the sickle and hammer aren't on every flagpole doesn't mean smuggling has ceased in the new Russia.
If Apple can deliver something at $25 to $80 a month like carriers who wouldn't want it?
I've seen some pre-paid plans that did, but super discount carriers I didn't trust too much on speed / EU roaming agreements to other countries.
The cheapest plans are on the Vodafone and O2 networks, which aren't as good as the Telekom (former state-owned) network. There are, however, plans with 3 GB for less than 10€ on the Telekom network. If you're willing to go with one of the shoddier networks, you can save a few more Euros each month.
It would be interesting to know what European countries have done differently from the US to foster competition in mobile providers.
A little bit context about the Austrian mobile market: Until 2012 we had four different carriers: Orange, T-Mobile, A1 and Drei (Hutchinson). December 2012 the EU commision approved the merger of Orange into Drei under a few conditions so that competition will not be hindered. One of those conditions required Drei to open its network for up to 16 MVNOs [1]. If I remember correctly, prices soared slightly, but after some MVNOs were successfully established, the other carriers opened up their networks too and the additional competition led to plummeting prices. It seems like it's not even that expensive to set up a MVNO. The request for dialling codes is free at the telecom regulatory body [2] and Drei's reference offer seems reasonable, even without negotiating better conditions[3]
[1]: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_12_... [2]: https://www.rtr.at/de/tk/Rufnummern [3]: https://www.drei.at/de/business/wholesale/mvno-and-reselling...
Besides, there's much more profit in Apple co-operating with countries like China vs trying to ignore their will and do their own thing on their land anyway. Either way, it's hard to imagine that a country like China wouldn't be able to create some blockers for Apple's telecoms.
Apple stands up for citizens rights in accordance with the law. It does not generally stand up for circumventing the law in countries, even if it might disagree with that law.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawful_interception
[1] https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/eng/sf08528.html
Edit: expanded concept.
True, but the great Surface-to-Space anti-satellite missile can, and China has very publicly demonstrated this capability. So Apple will still have to comply with onerous request from some space-faring nation's.
I'm thinking there are much more cost effective[0] ways to go about such possible ends any given space-faring nation may be seeking…
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_missile#Limits_...
With thinking like this, this is how one looses in the game of attrition warfare (setting aside the technical difficulties shooting down satellites that are trying to active evade such, rather than some boisterous demo on one that isn't). If the Chinese can't maintain "social cohesion" at a cheap of enough cost, it would be only be ruinous in the long run.
"There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare" - Sun Tzu
>Alternatively, they could insist that all ground control stations be based in China, with Chinese "partner" firms before the service gets off the ground
Well this certainly sounds like a cheaper alternative that seems way more sustainable and wont be as burdensome on the resources of a population. However, any ground station that has LOS into china from outside its borders) and powered high enough would evade such, then we're talking about the cat and mouse game of trying to impede beam paths. Maybe they'd have to purse something on the device level via the manufactures to block such things.
Just like the US or Russia, or any other major power, China does not need to play a game of cat and mouse over an entity acting in a way perceived as harmful to its populace. I'd like to think they are able to perform attribution, and have a range of options on how to apply pressure (diplomatic, financial / economic, or electronic - remember N. Korea vs Sony Films?)
1000 miles is about 5ms.
even if there could be a tiny ecosystem of apple wireless, nobody would interconnect to it.
Ubiquitilink (now called just Lynk) demonstrated the ability to communicate with existing, unmodified cellphones from orbit (the prototype was a secondary payload on the Cygnus spacecraft, which had resupplied the International Space Station). This is a remarkable feat and puts the technology in a completely different camp than it was when large LEO constellations like Iridium were tried beforehand. Iridium failed to acquire enough customers before going bankrupt in part because they required an expensive and clunky handset. Being able to use existing GSM and LTE phones without bulky antennas (and in spite of the latency being beyond what GSM/LTE usually tolerates) is a breakthrough.
https://www.spaceitbridge.com/cell-tower-in-the-sky-ubiquiti...
They plan to start with SMS texting (can use very cheap satellites and don't require very many of them) and then voice/data later on. (Plan is to partner with existing providers to allow global texting anywhere on the planet.)
The second prototype is a satellite launched on a SpaceX Dragon to the International Space Station that will be assembled by astronauts: https://mobile.twitter.com/NexGenSpace/status/11550878931631...
It's a complete gamechanger (possibly even bigger than SpaceX's Starlink). Doubtless Apple realizes this potential and wants their own in to this. It's a legitimate way for Apple to use their huge amount of cash to legitimately grow their revenue significantly. And Apple has the advantage that they can make modifications to the phones (or tablets or watches or notebooks, etc) themselves. Apple can also afford multi-billion-dollar investments that take many years to come to fruition, something Iridium (and Globalstar and others) couldn't at that time.
It's perhaps a big deal if you're a Yak farmer in remote Sibera and don't normally have any kind of coverage at all, but most people have some sort of cell coverage that provides at least SMS.
The comment that the bulky handset killed Iridium is only part of the picture. The bigger issue is that terrestrial cell antennas went up faster than Motorola expected, and by the time the system was online its primary use case had already largely vanished, especially among the kind of people who could afford the extremely high fees for the service. In the end the market niche closed down to government people in extremely remote locations who don't already have some sort of satellite connection.
It should be pointed out that Iridium (post-bankruptcy) became profitable and has recently finished launching their entire second-generation constellation (on Falcon 9). Their subscriber base continues to grow.
In sparsely populated areas where the service could be valuable, I think they can get away with a lot more (as far as frequency usage) than they could for mobile in dense areas. So I think it could indeed be useful.
A large percentage of those terrestrial base stations were built and sold by Motorola; they did pretty well overall. During that period of time, Motorola had low base station market share in the US and Europe - almost all of their business was in the locations that Iridium was built to serve.
The experience in designing, building and maintaining a large array of satellites (in Arizona, I think) most likely paid for itself in government contracts many times over.
Of course this is all speculations, but it has a lot of potential.
https://www.amazon.com/Eccentric-Orbits-Iridium-John-Bloom/d...
If Apple wants to launch satellites that can communicate with phones directly, I’d prefer that the work go into better maps and better real time navigation (though I’m not sure how the latter could be helped much with satellites). Apple users need this more than anything novel and fancy if Google’s lead on this needs to be narrowed.
Sure, we won't be able to stream media, but having slow and steady wireless communications vs. no signal at all is like comparing a running, rusty 1985 Volvo station wagon to a 2021 Porche 911 GTS with no wheels: one will move you from place to place, albeit at a stately pace and in no style, the other is super cool, and at this exact second in time, is unfit for the purpose of transporting a body from place to place.
I spent way too long picturing a Samsung Galaxy drifting out of the cargo bay of a launch vehicle before realising you meant a satellite in orbit could connect to a standard phone on the ground.
Are you questioning the expertise of Tim Farrar? If that is the case, you couldn't be more wrong. Check his blog and you will see he has been doing this thing for more than 20 years...
Also, lynk will never be able to provide enough bandwidth to deliver internet connectivity. It is envisioned to be used for short messages.
Lynk explicitly envisions the technology expanding beyond just text messages. They mention the speed over the LTE protocol of their satellite service is 180kbps, plenty for email, voice, streaming music, and some web browsing: http://www.satmagazine.com/story.php?number=1127710956
I see from the articles linked and their site that their business model is different, but I doubt they could sell enough service to cover the cost of launching and maintaining their own constellation. Their best hope (and plan) might be to get absorbed by one of the bigger players.
It is hard to compete against a well-funded company that makes its own rockets and payloads and has access to hundreds of experienced engineers in their own and sister companies.
I am not even that convinced that Lynk's idea would work from a technological point of view. A quick look at Wikipedia states that: "A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an altitude of 2,000 km (1,200 mi) "
I don't think you're getting a cell-signal to remain above the noise threshold/detectable level that far, especially under unfavorable atmospheric conditions. Yes, the satellite could have some impressive high-gain antenna, but the average cell phone is not going to transmit enough power to go more than 50 miles, let alone over a 1000. I'd genuinely love to see some data that contradicts me as I find the concept intriguing.
What makes their technology impressive is the ability to work beyond the usual ~20 mile limit without modifying user hardware.
A good article:
"For example, a standard cell phone connected to a terrestrial tower generally has a range limited to around 35 kilometers (21 miles) if the line-of-sight is not interrupted by hills, buildings, or foliage. The phone signal can travel further, but the reception range is artificially limited by the highly accurate time frames of the cell phone protocol.
To get the phone to connect to a satellite flying 500 kilometers (310 miles) overhead, Lynk’s software at the satellite overcomes the built-in time-frame distance limit built into standard phone protocols." http://www.satmagazine.com/story.php?number=1127710956
Unless they actually go public and file some FCC paperwork soon to actually get spectrum, I doubt that this is actually going to happen in the next 5 years, it seems like more of an exploratory effort.
I also imagine that this would be brutal for battery life.
That said, 12 people is clearly an indication that this project is still in the napkins-and-whiteboards stage.
I think 99% of the global market for comms is less than 1000m from places where there is or will be shortly power, fibre and property rights.
I'd say that is a tremendous overestimation. Even in the United States, the wireless carriers only advertise that they cover 95% of "Americans." Not "America," which is a vastly larger space.
And we all know that 95% is, itself, a gross exaggeration.
I really feel Spacex need a good partner for their net.
Meanwhile, given the secretive culture in Apple, I wonder if this "leak" is a calculated one. It can be from either top-executives or internal politics though.
But I don't think this will free everyone from mobile carriers, as we would hope. At least if you don't live in a tent. Those of us who live and work in skyscrapers will still need cellular and/or WiFi connections.
They are actually pretty common.
Musk is not about innovation in terms of entirely new products. As other posters have commented, rockets, electric cars, and Internet satellites have all been done before.
Where he seems to be special is having the vision to see opportunities to develop or scale existing products much further than incumbents, and having the confidence/chutzpah/bloody-mindedness to pull it off.
However, through the development required to meet his challenging goals, his teams often need to innovate significantly - this innovation is often exceptional.
And of course, what makes a large-scale global Internet satellite service viable is actually the ability to reuse launch rockets - one of his other major innovations.
Silicon Valley hubris at its best
By leveraging this clarity he can Get Things Done™, and we've seen tangible proof of that already with Tesla and SpaceX.
For everything he does deliver, there's 5 promises that he didn't. Humans on Mars by 2024, infrastructure on Mars by 2022? Model 3 was greatly delayed. $35k price point promise?
I'm not anti-Elon, the opposite actually; he does great work and his companies have contributed a lot and indeed solved many problems. But I really do wish people would tone down the hype over him sometimes. Half of what he says isn't even in realistic development, it just sees a trailer, and the next thing you know there's another product announced and people have forgotten all about that one.
Maybe it's easier than starting a regular ISP (to vacuum up data)?
With junk like this it's easy to see the appeal of wireless:
https://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2017/11/22/judge-rule...
In developing areas without stable cellular backbone like parts of Africa, South America, Central Asia etc anyone with a smartphone can get access to Google, Facebook, or Twitter as long as they're within line of sight of a satellite. More people using US software, more data to mine and more profits.
But even more interesting is that now US software services can't be censored in places like China, Iran, Vietnam, Cuba, etc. Anyone with a smartphone can access US internet satellites without going through the firewalled cellular backbone of their home country. The CIA and NSA would have a field day with the data they could mine and media they could push. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of government money being funneled towards development of a uncensorable satellite network to defray R&D costs or keep it running even if it never makes a profit.
The key to making this work though would be to have an internet satellite network where the satellites can do all the beamforming and signal processing well enough that smartphone antennas don't have to be significantly more powerful than they are today.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/08/06/iridium-communicat...
I looked at this statement.
“On an adjusted basis, Iridium said its operational profit rose 20% from a year ago to $78.7 million.”
Rookie mistake. I knew better.
Imagine all iPhones forming one network. The privacy, space based, will be awesome. But there will be one exit node to the public Internet. In future, as a website owner I will need a license from Apple, they will review my web page and want a cut of all transactions.
In summary: no thanks. That is privacy but not freedom.
Freedom does not guarantee ROI. Limiting user's choices and lock-in somewhat does. This conflict of interest seems impossible to resolve with an organization whose raison d'être is making money.
> "We work hard to build great products, and what consumers do with those tools is up to them — not Apple, and not broadband providers," Cynthia Hogan, VP of public policy at Apple, said in a comment filed to the FCC.
Yes, Apple regulate their App Store, they control what goes on and they have a licensing fee. That's also why the App Store is not like the Play Store. Apps are generally of a higher quality and better designed. They keep a tight lock on what is on that store. But that's for a specific purpose.
There's nothing to suggest that they would plan to do the same in the browser.
If they were going to do it they could do it already. They don't need to be their own ISP for iDevices to block content. They control the browser and the OS: they can block content just off the device.