IOS and Android 14 Will Support Direct Satellite Connectivity

On September 1st local time, Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s Senior Vice President, revealed that the Android team is now designing Android 14, which can support satellite connectivity and will be released in mid-to-late-2023.

Previously, SpaceX and T-Mobile announced that it would bring direct satellite connectivity to smartphones. Google Executives said Android 14 will support these functions, and user experiences for phones that can connect to satellites will be different from regular LTE and 5G connections in terms of speeds, connectivity, and even interaction time. T-Mobile said it would need to cooperate with partners, with late 2023 targeted for initial availability of this service. T-Mobile and SpaceX are also encouraging other carriers to adopt “reciprocal roaming” and spectrum sharing. The increased adoption will help reduce costs and increase efficiency.

The end-user experiences for phones that can connect to satellites require a system to complete the task. Apple’s iOS system was rumored to support satellite connectivity in its hardware as early as 2021, with the initial generation of Space Wi-Fi requiring a terrestrial receiver as a router. With increasingly refined technology, phones directly connected to Space Wi-Fi are just around the corner.