Another major cell phone company is launching satellite messaging, and it’s arriving pretty quickly.
In an announcement today, Verizon, the nation’s largest wireless provider, says customers “on certain smartphones” will have access to emergency messaging and location sharing starting this fall, “even when a terrestrial cellular network is not available.” Starting next year, customers on select devices will have the ability to utilize satellite texting to send a message to anyone.
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This fall, customers will be able to share their location with and send messages to first responders in emergencies where they don’t have a cell signal. With next year’s feature, customers will be able to text anyone without a signal.
Speaking to The Verge, a Verizon representative said there won’t be an extra charge for the service. Google has only committed to its satellite texting option on Pixels being free for two years.
Like it does for Pixel phones, Skylo will power the service. Apple also added satellite messaging over the summer, but a different company powers it.
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In May of this year, Verizon announced a partnership with AST SpaceMobile (as did AT&T) to power satellite messaging. That partnership is still in place, but the company is apparently using Skylo until AST builds its network.
Skylo has been in existence since 2017 and says it has processed more than 10 million messages over its network. While it primarily deals with connected machines in the agriculture, maritime, and mining industries, it has recently started expanding into consumer phones. It doesn’t own any satellites but instead leases spectrum from existing networks like VIASAT, EchoStar, Strigo, and Ligado.
