Apple maybe getting interested in broadband satellites

[Star One]

Surely pretty inevitable considering the interest of other large technology companies in this area.

Apple said to have held talks about investing in Boeing satellite broadband project

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-21/apple-hires-top-google-satellite-executives-for-new-hardware-team

[Eric Hedman]

This is getting interesting:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-20/apple-has-top-secret-team-working-on-internet-satellites

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7814721/Apple-secret-plan-develop-satellites-beam-data-space-report-says.html

[Eric Hedman]

I've had a little while to think about this.  Plus I a few minutes ago I drove past a Verizon store.  This would allow Apple to bypass the cell phone companies and get the whole pie.  If I were Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, etc. I would be getting very nervous.  Their biggest partner might now become a competitor.  Samsung and other cell phone makers are probably having emergency meetings right now if they didn't already know about this.  It may actually be a lot cheaper to build a constellation than to maintain cell towers everywhere.  I also wonder launch provider(s) they would go with.

Disruptions to industry are fun to watch as long as you aren't the one being disrupted.  It will be fascinating to see if this turns into a major industry disruption in the next few years.

[RedLineTrain]

The descriptions in the articles are vague, but if they are aiming to replace cell towers, this ground has been tread before.  The most notable is Iridium.

If Apple is serious on replacing towers, they should just buy Iridium (that has the necessary spectrum rights worldwide) and then embark on a Super-Iridium constellation.

But I doubt they are serious, or serious enough, for this market.  It reminds me of their supposed entry into the electric car business.

[Coastal Ron]

From the Bloomberg article:

It’s not clear if Apple intends to pursue the costly development of a satellite constellation itself or simply harness on-the-ground equipment that would take data from existing satellites and send it to mobile devices.

As I recall it is possible for current generation cellphones to detect satellite signals, but the software that manages detecting RF signals ignores signals that are not local - in other words, the handshake connections time out because of the additional distance there is between the surface of the Earth and even LEO.

Modern cellphones already use assisted GPS, which is a hybrid of GPS satellites and terrestrial networks, and what I'm describing is a different data network separate from GPS.

Note, I'm not an engineer, and I'm going off of memory of an article that I read more than a year ago, but I remembered it because of the implications that standard cellphones could get more than GPS data from satellites - if their software were changed to allow it.

I think that could be one possibility that Apple is looking at, and it would be something that could be deployed through regular model upgrades, and without the need to own their own satellite network.

/wild*speculation

[Exastro]

More speculation:


The plan is to build a constellation of ~100 satellites in MEO and roll out service around 2022.  Initial service will be to high-end iPhones only.  These iPhones will have optimizations that significantly improve service quality over generic phones, and their limited number will keep the constellation from being inundated early on.  MEO lets them cover the globe without having to launch ~1000 satellites while still keeping the latency and antenna mass acceptably low.

The service will be low-rate data and voice only.  It'll differentiate itself from Iridium by smaller, sleeker, handsets that double as ordinary smartphones, and little emphasis will be made on IoT applications.  It'll be marketed as an obviously upscale product that lets the user transcend national boundaries and get a signal basically anywhere he can see the sky.  The revenues generated at this stage would be modest, and probably not enough to justify the investment.

If the rollout goes well, the plan is to license the critical parts of the terminal design to other smartphone makers and launch additional satellites to support the growing traffic.  This would give Apple a potentially valuable pair of revenue streams (connection fees and license fees).  It would also give them first-mover advantage if the expanded offerings sell well, which means they'd have a lot of influence in the further development of the basic technology.

[gongora]

I only read about half of the Bloomberg article, didn't think it was particularly well written/researched.

Completely random speculation is unlikely to be useful.

Another company is already actively testing connectivity to phones from orbit:
https://lynk.world/  https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=47511.0

[arachnitect]

The imagery people involved make me suspect this is more about mapping/traffic than data connections with handsets.

I think Apple is making a push on 3D mapping to better compete with Google, position for Augmented Reality, and further down the line Autonomous Vehicles.

[TrevorMonty]

Apple has spare cash ($245B) to test concept on small constellation.

[freddo411]

I've had a little while to think about this.  Plus I a few minutes ago I drove past a Verizon store.  This would allow Apple to bypass the cell phone companies and get the whole pie.  If I were Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, etc. I would be getting very nervous.  Their biggest partner might now become a competitor.  Samsung and other cell phone makers are probably having emergency meetings right now if they didn't already know about this.  It may actually be a lot cheaper to build a constellation than to maintain cell towers everywhere.  I also wonder launch provider(s) they would go with.

Disruptions to industry are fun to watch as long as you aren't the one being disrupted.  It will be fascinating to see if this turns into a major industry disruption in the next few years.

I think we are quite far technically from enabling large scale mobile phone service solely from satellites.   Terrestrial towers will be a very important part of any cell service in urban areas.

That being said, rural service may be dominated by satellites much quicker than people imagine.

[su27k]

But I doubt they are serious, or serious enough, for this market.  It reminds me of their supposed entry into the electric car business.

Exactly, their adventures into cars is going nowhere.

And I'm not sure if it's even feasible for satellites to replace cell towers, how does that work when you're inside buildings?

[Eric Hedman]

But I doubt they are serious, or serious enough, for this market.  It reminds me of their supposed entry into the electric car business.

Exactly, their adventures into cars is going nowhere.

And I'm not sure if it's even feasible for satellites to replace cell towers, how does that work when you're inside buildings?

Apple has jumped into quite a few venture with either starting something new or by acquisition.  Some of them have been quite successful.  Others just faded away.  The list of the acquisitions is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Apple

Just because they gave up on cars doesn't mean anything when it comes to what they are looking into now.

"And I'm not sure if it's even feasible for satellites to replace cell towers, how does that work when you're inside buildings?" It works just like cell towers do if you're inside a building.  If you are on the right frequency and your broadcast power is sufficient and you have a sensitive enough receiver it works.  In some buildings cell phones don't work for various reasons.  I've been in a few where Sprint put in repeaters.  There are several antennas hanging inside and a large one on the roof to connect to cell towers.  The same could be done with buildings that block enough of the signal with satellites.

[Nomadd]

But I doubt they are serious, or serious enough, for this market.  It reminds me of their supposed entry into the electric car business.

Exactly, their adventures into cars is going nowhere.

And I'm not sure if it's even feasible for satellites to replace cell towers, how does that work when you're inside buildings?

Small, local APs, similar to the femto/micro cells phone companies send out to customers.

[noogie]

There are too many issues with the physics issues for them to make using their own satellites a feasible alternative to cellular networks.
I think it will be for other things like mapping (they need to improve Apple Maps) as well as remote sensing and geospatial data for augmented reality (which they have been interesting in adding to the iphone for a while now).
Of course it could just be some research that may never see the light of day (something that may come under "other bets" at Google but at Apple stays secret until leaked like this). Of course for Apple the cost of having a team like this go nowhere is chump change 

[TrevorMonty]

There are too many issues with the physics issues for them to make using their own satellites a feasible alternative to cellular networks.
I think it will be for other things like mapping (they need to improve Apple Maps) as well as remote sensing and geospatial data for augmented reality (which they have been interesting in adding to the iphone for a while now).
Of course it could just be some research that may never see the light of day (something that may come under "other bets" at Google but at Apple stays secret until leaked like this). Of course for Apple the cost of having a team like this go nowhere is chump change 

These big companies spend a lot of money on researching brainstorming ideas like this. Most go nowhere but occasionally they hit jackpot eg Amazon AWS. Only need one AWS to justify a 100 projects that go nowhere.

[Robotbeat]

But I doubt they are serious, or serious enough, for this market.  It reminds me of their supposed entry into the electric car business.

Exactly, their adventures into cars is going nowhere.

And I'm not sure if it's even feasible for satellites to replace cell towers, how does that work when you're inside buildings?

This is a lot closer to their core business.

[Asteroza]

I only read about half of the Bloomberg article, didn't think it was particularly well written/researched.

Completely random speculation is unlikely to be useful.

Another company is already actively testing connectivity to phones from orbit:
https://lynk.world/  https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=47511.0

Ubiquitilink/Lynk Global has the operational experience with direct cellular with a satellite via Cygnus experiments, so they are are the farthest along.

It would not be uncharacteristic of Apple to underwrite a "supplier" completely to stand up new capability for the Apple ecosystem. See what happened with the artificial ruby factory for when that goes wrong, but Apple has invested in factories for supplies in exchange for manufacturing exclusivity with considerable success, gaining access to new parts well before competitors. Apple going long and setting up a 5G exclusive satellite network would be an interesting play to bypass the capital tables problem incumbent cellular carriers face in recapitalizing for 5G deployment. Apple already has their eSIM MVNO service riding on top of other carriers as is, so an interesting end run would be offloading wherever the MVNO can operate, but where traffic allows, push to satellite.

One major issue is setting up the large antennas on such satellites for such such a large constellation of low flying sats. The only realistic solutions are things like Archinaut, or SpiderFab (particularly the open documentation regarding Tethers Unlimited concepts for OrbWeaver, which specifically envisioned extremely large antennas on sats). Getting ITU clearance to run pure 5G direct from satellites will be an interesting legal adventure however.

Apple doing a double grab of TUI and Lynk.Global to get the ball rolling would be very interesting...

[ChrisWilson68]

But I doubt they are serious, or serious enough, for this market.  It reminds me of their supposed entry into the electric car business.

Exactly, their adventures into cars is going nowhere.

And I'm not sure if it's even feasible for satellites to replace cell towers, how does that work when you're inside buildings?

This is a lot closer to their core business.

I agree that it's closer to their core business, but it's still pretty far outside their core competency.  Designing and building a satellite system is not the same as building a consumer product.

[Asteroza]

Designing and building a satellite system is not the same as building a consumer product.

Nobody tell Amazon that...

[TrevorMonty]

I only read about half of the Bloomberg article, didn't think it was particularly well written/researched.

Completely random speculation is unlikely to be useful.

Another company is already actively testing connectivity to phones from orbit:
https://lynk.world/  https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=47511.0

Ubiquitilink/Lynk Global has the operational experience with direct cellular with a satellite via Cygnus experiments, so they are are the farthest along.

It would not be uncharacteristic of Apple to underwrite a "supplier" completely to stand up new capability for the Apple ecosystem. See what happened with the artificial ruby factory for when that goes wrong, but Apple has invested in factories for supplies in exchange for manufacturing exclusivity with considerable success, gaining access to new parts well before competitors. Apple going long and setting up a 5G exclusive satellite network would be an interesting play to bypass the capital tables problem incumbent cellular carriers face in recapitalizing for 5G deployment. Apple already has their eSIM MVNO service riding on top of other carriers as is, so an interesting end run would be offloading wherever the MVNO can operate, but where traffic allows, push to satellite.

One major issue is setting up the large antennas on such satellites for such such a large constellation of low flying sats. The only realistic solutions are things like Archinaut, or SpiderFab (particularly the open documentation regarding Tethers Unlimited concepts for OrbWeaver, which specifically envisioned extremely large antennas on sats). Getting ITU clearance to run pure 5G direct from satellites will be an interesting legal adventure however.

Apple doing a double grab of TUI and Lynk.Global to get the ball rolling would be very interesting...

But I doubt they are serious, or serious enough, for this market.  It reminds me of their supposed entry into the electric car business.

Exactly, their adventures into cars is going nowhere.

And I'm not sure if it's even feasible for satellites to replace cell towers, how does that work when you're inside buildings?

This is a lot closer to their core business.

I agree that it's closer to their core business, but it's still pretty far outside their core competency.  Designing and building a satellite system is not the same as building a consumer product.

Don't need to reinvent wheel. Apple can buy a satellite manufacturer or two including operators and their ground system.