Light Reading: How, and when, you might connect your smartphone to a satellite
Today’s iPhones and Androids cannot communicate directly with satellites in space. Instead, they must connect to nearby cell towers on the ground.
But that may soon change.
A large range of companies – from tiny startups to some of the biggest corporations on Earth – are racing each other to connect regular smartphones directly to satellites. According to analyst Lluc Palerm of Northern Sky Research (NSR), this represents the largest opportunity in the history of the satellite communications industry, worth $66.8 billion over the next ten years. That’s almost double what should be generated by existing, standard satellite services over that period.