AT&T Introduces Satellite-Enabled Smart Phone 140
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."
You forgot to mention what is really important! (Score:1)
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Why that? It's 200 bucks cheaper than an unlocked iPhone 4.
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Where is it $200 more? Somewhere in the EU?
I just bought my unlocked iPhone 32Gb from Apple Canada for $780 + tax. The 16Gb is only $660 + tax.
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First googled result 999$ New York based I think.
http://www.mobilecityonline.com/wireless/store/productdetail.asp?productid=26472&refid=froogle&utm_source=froogle&utm_medium=organic&utm_term=IPHONE416BKEU&utm_campaign=froogle [mobilecityonline.com]
Yay this is awsome. (Score:1)
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As long as someone else pays the bill...like the government (ie forest ranger)
I don't mean to pick, and basically agree with you... but, presumably, forest rangers work in a forest. Forget cell, it doesn't go through trees... and if you have a view of the southern sky, you're probably in a desert not a forest. Forest rangers need good RF, not cell or satellite. I speak, of course, without knowing anything about which I speak.
Re:Yay this is awsome. (Score:4, Informative)
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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actually, it will be those who pay a lot of tax.
hopefully, those with more money are going to be paying more tax.
DirecWay to the rescue! (Score:3, Interesting)
Why hasn't someone created a device like this that uses the widely available direcway/blue sky technology? Given the maximum per channel bandwidth and the relatively small needs of a voice communication device it seems like a fairly low power device should be able to function with acceptable psnr.
Re:DirecWay to the rescue! (Score:4, Informative)
uh no (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:uh no (Score:5, Informative)
Irridium has the advantage of being in low earth orbit versus Direcway's geosynchronous orbit. The path loss between a 250ish mile orbit and a 22,500 mile orbit is a hefty number of dB.
Assuming both systems At 2Ghz, it is 150dB at 250 miles and 190db at 22,500 miles. That 40db difference either has to be made up in raw transmit power at both ends or by using a 5.3m dish antenna.
Re:uh no (Score:4, Informative)
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That is why I have been saying spend more money on subspace communication R&D.
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Not true. I've run many voip calls across geosync links, and despite the lag time, conversations can flow quite nicely.
Going through two geosync links, now that just gets ugly.
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There are successful GEO based satphone systems. While i'm sure latency is annoyingit is something people can learn to live with. Especially when that task at hand is important information rather than idle conversation (and at current prices few people will be doing idle communication on a satphone)
LEO systems have several problems. They are horribly expensive since they need huge numbers of satelites and end up with basically uniform coverage of the planet rather than coverage density varying with demand (
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Good for you.
When I'm in the middle of the forest or out in a boat is it's because someone is paying me to do work out there. I often need to communicate with people back at the office in those situations, and texting is often the easiest way to do that.
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Satellite phones predate even Iridium (as mentioned by the other followup).. Iridium was a new way of marketing the technology to be more acceptable (which ultimately failed spectacularly) (and also significantly improving the handset form-factor), but I remember using a suitcase sat phone in the early 90s.
Re:DirecWay to the rescue! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:DirecWay to the rescue! (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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The other issue is this: The direcway uplink bands are on frequencies shared with other uplinks on other satellites. Interference isn't a problem because each customer uplink dish is precisely aimed at the satellite and the antenna's beamwidth is such that there is no interference to adjacent satellites. Imagine the insanity of one person on the satphone to his stock broker, pacing back and forth, his uplink beam spattering all over the sky.
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HughesNet (the former DirecWay) uses satellite(s) in a geostationary orbit, over 22,000 miles above the equator. That results in a significant delay (round trip of almost half a second), which makes regular voice conversations impractical. The satellite phone systems like Iridium use a whole constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit to avoid the big delay, but running a large number of satellites and ground stations costs a whole lot more (so the service costs a whole lot more).
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HughesNet (the former DirecWay) uses satellite(s) in a geostationary orbit, over 22,000 miles above the equator. That results in a significant delay (round trip of almost half a second), which makes regular voice conversations impractical.
Uh, I've made many calls via geostationary satellites and while the delay is mildly annoying, it's far from impractical.
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Because in your universe, c=90,000mi/s? Physics fail.
Round trip (from your phone to a non-sat phone and back) takes 4 22,500+ mile trips: your phone to a sat, sat to ground station (to non-sat phone), (non-sat phone to) ground station to sat, sat to your phone. That's 90,000 miles, or about .48 seconds at the speed of light. Add in the regular non-sat phone delays (especially for cell phones), and you are at or above half a second.
Math is hard. Use a calculator next time.
All the better (Score:1, Troll)
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You can already be tracked, with good accuracy, when carrying ANY cell phone that is "on". And the big issue is that those records can be (and might be) stored.
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In England they are stored. I know this because they were used to prove that a murder suspect wasn't at the scene of the murder, which meant he was found not guilty.
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>No, that means his phone wasn't there. It doesn't prove that he wasn't there.
Exactly. Such technology can be used to frame people, to falsely "prove innocent", for bad people to find and take advantage of good people, and generally to invade everyone's privacy. It is not a panacea of peace, harmony, and security as some would believe.
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You can argue about the evidence. The court did look at the evidence and concluded he was with his phone at the time. That's not the point, the point is that the evidence was available for the court to look at, thereby proving that tracking does take place.
Texting (Score:3, Interesting)
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SMS sucks. Why not email? Latency and bandwidth wouldn't be issues.
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I agree completely. Why somebody felt compelled to invent a bastardized version of email in the first place is beyond me.
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For extremely brief messages, SMS is faster and the recipient doesn't need to have their chat or email client open. As long as their phone is on, they'll get the message. This is useful for messages like, "Answer your goddamn phone. We need to talk now!" or "I'm watching you sleep."
Re:Texting (Score:4, Funny)
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!
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Why somebody felt compelled to invent a bastardized version of email in the first place is beyond me.
(hmmm... question of a fresher in this world... a better wording would be pre-dates you)
A dose of history [wikipedia.org]... see where the SMS originated (when the gadgets weren't connected to the internet. Heck, when the Internet was something that DARPA and a bunch of universities used - 9600 BITS/s was quite decent at the time).
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quote>
I agree completely. Why somebody felt compelled to invent a bastardized version of email in the first place is beyond me.
Yes, God forbid the rich get richer at the expense of the not so rich. But how do we stop it?
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Also they 160char limit is long gone. On the back-end any SMS longer than 160chars is broken down into multiple messages to travel across the network. But this is transparent to the user.
Email is still superior but I don't think it will replace SMS any time soon because email on a phone can quickly become an inconvenience. I avoid using email on my phone because I would be constantly interrupted, with SMS/Voice calls people know not to call at 1am. With email people don't hold back because it's not expected
Re:Texting (Score:5, Interesting)
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Still, it's a text that goes to space and comes back! Of course, I'd buy one text like that and not send any more.
Re:Texting (Score:5, Insightful)
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It really makes me wonder how they come up with these prices.
Some prices are derived based on market and financial models. Others (and I've seen this first hand) is someone in a meeting throwing a number on a whiteboard and someone else saying "That works, we'll try it at that price".
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If there was actually a bit of competition in the area I'd be satisfied with that explanation.
But when a long term contract means I'm locked into whatever they see fit to hide in the fine print, I'm not exactly at liberty to take my business elsewhere, now am I?
in theory... (Score:2)
In economics professor land what you say is true.
In the real world, people get upset and offended when they discover that the price differential between what they paid for something and what it cost to make is too large. It's not economically rational, it's just human nature.
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You can't compare those technologies.
SMS is using the signalling service within the GSM network, this is a very limited technology and can't easily be upgraded, thus you pay way more than for the technology where you can offload to a separate link.
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It really makes me wonder how they come up with these prices.
Because items (and services) don't have inherent values. They're worth whatever someone's willing to pay. That said, the ability to receive and transmit data to and from a dynamic remote location can be priceless.
Re:Texting (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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I fit in to the first category. If I'm flying my GA aircraft somewhere without cell service, the Iridium phone and my prepaid card are coming with. If something critical or life threatening is happening, I care not about the minutes cost. I would love if my Nexus One had an Iridium chipset on board (would've paid for it as well).
My investment method has been vindicated! (Score:3, Funny)
Windows Mobile 6.5... (Score:2, Funny)
Anyone remember Iridium? (Score:3, Interesting)
In the late the late 80s, Motorola had a scheme to launch 77 LEO satellites to provide global satellite coverage. I thought it was a great idea at the time, and bought a bunch of Motorola stock. It didn't work out very well. They eventually launched 66 satellites, but didn't change the name of the project to whatever has atomic number 66.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellation [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Anyone remember Iridium? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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The US gov isn't just a major customer. They are *the largest customer*. You get that status when you get your own Iridium downlink station. =) At the prices they pay for service, it might just make sense for them to buy out Iridium.
Re:Anyone remember Iridium? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Just look on ebay to see how well Iridium phones hold their value. There's probably a growing market for them in Australia.
Iridium even have spare satellites they can manouvre into position to replace broken ones. and with the latest phone, easy access to a 9,600bps data service by plugging your phone into a USB port, which is good enough to access your email if you use a remote text client such as Mutt, Pine, etc.Their 2,400 data connection. And their low orbit satellite constellation provides true global
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That would be "Dysprosium" - just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Get it? Ring?! I'm here all week, please try the fish.
799? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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Yes, 800 USD is about the first ten minutes of a search and rescue operation. Put one aircraft in the air and you have spent that much money.
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The HP-65 calculator I received for HS graduation in 1974 was the same price.
100 programming steps, 10 registers, mag card reader/writer and numeric LED display.
I finally traded it for a S-100 memory card. A friend later picked it up from the buyer.
It's his most treasured calculator to this day. Bastard!
So let me get this right... (Score:2)
It's not the first time a phone company has tried to sell combined satellite-terrestrial phones. Sprint Nextel Corp. sold Iridium phones in 1999, and Airtouch, a predecessor of Verizon Wireless, sold Globalstar phones a year a later.
So this has been done before
"Neither of them had any meaningful success because there just wasn't mass market demand for the phones," said Tim Farrar, a satellite industry consultant.
It crashed and burned
Hill said the Genus is a different breed, because it can be used a main phone, with most of the conveniences expected from smart phones, without the bulk of a traditional satellite phone. The cost to include the satellite option is also coming down, which means the feature could show up in more, and cheaper, phones in the near future, he said.
But this is different, because you can use it like a normal phone, only it's -really- expensive. However, a cheaper option may be available in the future. Someone needs to be fired. No one wanted to pay $5/meg before, and no one wants to pay $5/meg now. I don't care if it has a built in keyboard and calendar. Come back when you have the the cheaper future version.
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If was living, working or travelling in a remote region with not other coverage, and you've just had a major accident, and need an air ambulance, or even just a recovery truck to get me and my car home, I'd be really happy I'd got a device like that!
-R
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PicoCell (Score:2)
Southern Sky? (Score:2)
Southern sky from what part of the planet?
Frikking Northernhepisphereocentrics.
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Seeing how it is AT&T, what hemisphere were you expecting?
http://www.corp.att.com/ap/about/where/australia/ [att.com] ok, they don't mention satellite phones, but as the previous chap said: Frikking Northernhepisphereocentrics. And 'Southern Sky" _is_ usually taken to be the sky above the southern hemisphere
Win Mo 6.5... (Score:2)
Let me see if I get this right .. (Score:1)
1) ATT ... NO ... NO ... NO ... NO
2) Windows Mobile
3) $595
4) $1 / min
5)???
6) Fail
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Way cheaper than Iridium for Boaters (Score:2, Interesting)
At 40 cents a minute, it is way cheaper than all other Sat phones, and would be great for marine use.
Too bad they will only target the US, that leaves any cruising boats out of the picture once they venture away from the shores of the US (_sigh_).
What a bunch of rubbish! (Score:2)
AT&T are full of it! Instead of improving their network, they are busy doing this stuff. Where's the leadership?
I always wondered this (Score:1)
What killed Irridium (Score:1)
I was told that what killed Iridium was the local Telecom laws.
Originally Iridium was going to bounce international calls directly satellite to satellite, but the local Telecoms screamed blue-murder so Iridium was forced to put ground-stations in each country and use conventional international links. So the cost of calls went way up.
It gets worse, it also means using multiple synchronous satellite links, so it has long time delays.
I don't really know, but it does sounds convincing.
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I bet all the people working at Iridium would like to know they've been killed.
How unfortunate.
More than reasonable (Score:2)
Anyone complaining about the cost is missing the point of this phone. Satellite mode is not for idle chatter. It's for essential weather/safety/navigation/professional needs. And perhaps brief family communication such as when to expect you home. I would expect boaters to lease this just for the trip rather than purchase their own $800 device. All in all AT&T should be able to sell the service even for 5x rate with the right marketing.
$5 per megabyte is not sky-high (Score:1)
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I never said it was, AC. Never said it was a good deal, either.
Actually according to the link you provided it's $15/month access fee, plus $0.99 per minute, plus $595 for the phone itself (it's "on sale", regularly $699). I'm sure there are plenty of other charges you only find out about once you sign up too, just like every other telecommunications deal.
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Also, the additional $204 on the phone gives you a GSM smart phone running Windows Mobile. With the other option, you would have to buy a separate GSM or CDMA phone for regular city use, and that may well cost more than $204.
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This isn't groundbreaking tech.
Actually, it is. Its the largest commercial satellite ever launched. The comm technology isn't too shabby either. Iridium had 66 satellites and this gets it done with one. Sure its just North America but thats at least 1/4 of the satellite phone market. To handle that takes significantly advanced signal processing. Also, Inmarsat has data but only in a modem the size of a laptop. Granted it is a lot cheaper for voice.
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The groundbreaking tech is that you can get a sat phone you can fit in your pocket. Previous geostationary phones would fit in a laptop bag, and Iridium phones would fit in a laptop bag alongside a laptop.
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crappy (US only) satellite coverage
TFS says you need a clear view of the southern sky. Doesn't sound like US only to me.
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Well okay but the reference to the southern sky probably means it uses equatorial satellites, which should at least work to the same south latitude as the northern limit.
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Just the one as far as I can gather, and the dish is pointing in the general direction of the US.
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Well okay but the reference to the southern sky probably means it uses equatorial satellites, which should at least work to the same south latitude as the northern limit.
Not likely. The satellite this uses has one big dish which is pointed in the general direction of the US. Southern hemisphere users could get a signal to the satellite just the same, but it's not listening in their direction.