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Comment by trompetenaccoun | Hacker News Reader

Only works in the US and not even in all states. Ridiculous. What's the point of satellites to then be so geo-restricted?

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That's Google for you. I bought Pixel 8 Pro when it came out, after I had Samsung (never was into iPhone, my wife has those though). I regretted pretty much right away. Heavy AF compared to Galaxy, cool features US-locked, EU means nothing to that company since it looked like they haven't even applied for licenses for cool shit in EU - had to fake my SIM to be in US just to unlock thermometer etc.. I will not buy any device from them anytime soon.

> had to fake my SIM to be in US just to unlock thermometer

IIRC that's also available in some EU countries, the issue in this specific case isn't google but the fact that devices which could be construed to offer medical info tend to require certification varying by country

And yet somehow Samsung and Apple manage to bring most features here.

you're right, the issue being google hasn't even applied for certification. Aside from that, try buying anything google hardware outside of select core market. Somehow, Samsung and Apple (and a ton of smaller players) are able to have global availability with no issues.

Regulations don't much care about what's technically possible.

Apple was able to make it work in most "developed" countries (do we have a better term for these countries now?). I guess they're just better at the regulatory game?

Also why would regulations prevent them from operating in Alaska, for example? I'm sure the Alaskan government would be happy to provide better emergency connectivity, highly doubt regulation is the issue. People are already being rescued, this here happened in 2022:

https://www.businessinsider.com/stranded-man-alaska-rescued-...

Google presumably uses Skylo, and that's only available in some regions.

I believe they currently only use Terrestar-1 and Terrestar-2, with Inmarsat to follow some time this year for almost global coverage.

Terrestar-1 covers the lower 48 US states with one spot beam, and Alaska and Hawaii with another one each, but I believe the latter two ones are relatively new, so maybe Google isn't using these yet?

I suspect this because I've used a Motorola Defy Satellite Link for the past year, which uses IoT-NTN just like the Pixel's baseband, and it's only been available in Europe and the lower 48 at launch (i.e. also with Hawaii and Alaska missing).

[1] https://www.satbeams.com/satellites?norad=35496

It's available in 17 countries so far. That's a long shot from "all developed countries" by most metrics.

And this really does seem to be largely due to regulations (and probably also integration with local emergency services), as there is no geographic pattern to availability.

Not sure, but it may have to do with Apple using the Globalstar satellites.

One of the more popular terms is now the "Global North"[1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_Sout...

As someone from a developed country in the southern hemisphere, I find that a pretty terrible term.

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