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AT&T Introduces Satellite-Enabled Smart Phone
crimeandpunishment writes "Here's one way to deal with spotty cell phone coverage: backstop the network on a satellite. AT&T is now selling its first satellite-enabled smart phone....which could be invaluable for boaters, forest rangers, and others who regularly leave regular cellular coverage areas. But the TerreStar Genus comes with a hefty price tag: $799.....and the data costs are as sky-high as the satellite....400 times more than a standard plan. It also has to have a clear view of the southern sky, which means it can only be used outdoors."
because Iridium has -- for a bit over a decade.
PS the article says texts are "40 cents each, only four times the piece rate for cell phone." That's way too much, just as 10 cents for a regular text is a complete ripoff. 40 cents each works out to around $3000/MB, whereas (non-texting) satellite data on the same phone costs $5/MB. It really makes me wonder how they come up with these prices.
799 is a hefty price for a gadget?? remind me how much nexus was going for on google site? and with regards to data costing 400 time more - excuse moi, i don't know where are you from, but here in canada rogers beats any satellite plan hands down.
Because people pay it.
Iridium uses its own network of satellites. Iridium is expensive. A direcway subscription is like 60 bucks a month with about 600MB a day allotment. Seems they could partner with a phone provider to offer a 10MB a day channel for a pretty low fee, what's needed is a means of accessing the technology.
The links just won't close. I don't have the exact numbers I'd need to do a link budget, but the Direcway links are engineered for a Ku link with a .9m dish on the ground and a 3-4m dish on the spacecraft, with the ground transmitting at 2-4 watts. The TerreStar satellite has an 18m dish on the satellite. That's a crapload more gain. TerreStar also uses a 2Ghz link which is also virtually unaffected by weather.
Also keep in mind that generating sufficient output power at Ku frequencies is extremely inefficient. A Direcway 4W BUC amplifier draws about 50 watts out of its power supply. I doubt your average cell phone's battery can tolerate that.
Iridium was more than just a way to market the technology ... they use low-orbit satellites which can provide a stronger signal and less lag. Unfortunately they spend $7,000,000,000 developing the technology, and the market just wasn't big enough for it.
In my experience with satellite phone users, there's two types:
1) The guys who are going camping way out in the middle of Nowhere. They wont use their phone unless someone is dying. At that point, I don't think they care about per-minute costs. Usually, those folks have bought $50-100 prepaid airtime cards.
2) Businessmen who need to be in contact with home base no matter what. That includes oil/gas industries, or senior-level executives. The folks in accounting get the bill and the end user just knows to dial, press send, and then carry on.
Source: Me, having to provide sales & support services to Irridium and INMARSAT users.
The US government loves it. They are a major customer. No surprise, they have people operating in areas that have shit cell coverage and they want to maintain communication.
Because it was super-easy to bolt on to the status channel and it can be sold at a high margin? My god! I've invented business!
Why should things be priced based on their actual cost to the provider? It makes much more sense to demand a price, which maximizes the profit. If you decide to use the service, it's obviously worth the price and both parties have gained something from the transaction.
At the prices they pay for service, it might just make sense for them to buy out Iridium.
Essentially, they did. When Iridium was about to go under and the satellites were days from being de-orbited, DoD bought into the system at a bargain price. This turned out to be extremely useful once the US got entangled in Iraq and Afghanistan. Originally, DoD bought unlimited airtime for 10,000 users. Now they're past 100,000 DoD users. Iridium overall has about 360,000 users.
It's the thing to have if you need to communicate from Outer Nowhere. Works anywhere on the planet that you can see the sky. Airtime is about $1 to $2 a minute, and phones are about $1500. A roll-up solar panel is a common accessory. The typical user drives a HUMMV, a yacht, or a dogsled.
The "clear view" of sourthern sky is not necessarily so. Maybe if you were in a tropical forest, you'd have a problem. A standard pine forest does attenuate things, but pine needles aren't leaves. I've used Iridium for a bit and I've never ever had a situation where a satphone connection wouldn't work on the ground, but would work above the tops of the pines. Terrestar uses way better space segment, with comparatively colossal beamforming, so I'd expect it to work much better than Iridium did.
In the U.S., detached residential construction is basically relatively dry plywood with a wire or a pipe here and there, and with some bitumic shingles on the roof. Unless the shingles are the dealbreaker, I'd expect GENUS to work just fine indoors in a regular home. In commercial buildings -- sure, there will be problems, perhaps a bit more like there are with cellphone reception there.
As for cellphones in forests: assuming that the forest is well within a covered area, the trees should pose no problem. You always get attenuation from something. Trees, walls, rebar -- somehow my cellphone works just fine in a building with extruded corrugated steel roof (big seamless sections), and with reinforced concrete walls, at ground level.
Forests in remote areas simply may suffer from generally poor coverage, where the trees just make a marginal situation unworkable. But the trees aren't the main problem, the coverage is. And that's where GENUS steps in: you have poor land-based coverage, so it'll switch to the space segment.
I've been tracking Terrestar's PR quite closely, and they seem to be quite good at what they do. Their space segment is unique, and so far I have no reason to distrust their engineering. They cover their asses, but from what little experience I have, I'd expect GENUS to pretty much "just work" anywhere within the northern U.S., even in the middle of nowhere, Utah.
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