Apple has committed to investing about $1.5 billion in Globalstar, the company whose network of satellites provide communications services to owners of the latest iPhones.
Apple wants more services and capabilities from Globalstar, which will extend its lead as one of only two providers of satellite services to phone users. Google partnered with Skylo to offer emergency satellite messages to Pixel 9 series owners back in August. Other efforts in the phone industry to offer satellite services have foundered, and carriers haven’t progressed beyond successfully testing messaging through partner satellite networks.
Currently, owners of the iPhone 14, iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 models can, when outside their mobile networks, use Globalstar’s satellites to reach emergency services through Emergency SOS. Recently, Apple extended this to include text messages. Apple coordinates these services through a combined network of Globalstar satellites and ground stations, and for now, offers it free of charge.
Read more: I Visited Google for an Inside Look at the Pixel 9’s Satellite SOS Tool
With Apple’s $1.5 billion investment, Globalstar will launch a new satellite constellation and expand ground infrastructure, which is grouped in a new “mobile satellite services” network, according to the company’s recent SEC filing. It will also increase its global mobile services licensing as part of an “Extended MSS Network,” and Apple will prepay for customers to use some of these services.
Globalstar allocates 85% of its network for Apple’s use, the filing noted.
Apple declined to comment on the nature of the investment or whether it would result in additional services for iPhone owners. Globalstar did not return a request for comment by time of publication.
Beyond messaging, the next frontier of satellite services is to send data — for instance, through messaging apps like WhatsApp and Signal — along with voice calls and video chats.
US carriers announced partnerships with satellite providers years ago to provide customers with service beyond terrestrial 4G LTE and 5G networks, though they haven’t activated those services yet, with one exception: T-Mobile. The company, which first partnered with SpaceX’s Starlink back in 2022, got last-minute federal approval to send alerts and provide emergency satellite texting to victims of hurricanes Helene and Milton in October. In an earnings call in October, T-Mobile’s CEO Mike Sievert said that during the hurricanes, the temporary service saw hundreds of thousands of successfully completed text messages to people that otherwise wouldn’t have gone through.
Verizon, which had signed up with Amazon’s satellite company Project Kuiper in 2021, declared a new partnership with AST SpaceMobile back in May. AT&T announced its own partnership with AST SpaceMobile in 2022 and affirmed a commercial agreement between the companies in May; AST SpaceMobile launched its first five commercial satellites in September, which will eventually provide service to carrier customers.
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