On the morning of September 8, there was no preview, Huawei Mate 60 Pro+ and Huawei Mate X5 were listed on the HUAWEI Mall and opened for pre-order, and the number of pre-orders released was swept away.
Previously, on August 29, Huawei Mate 60 and Mate 60 Pro mobile phones were also suddenly launched on Huawei Mall, causing consumers to rush to buy.
It is worth noting that Huawei emphasized the satellite communication function of the new product, among which, Huawei Mate 60 Pro supports satellite call, Huawei called it "the world's first mass smartphone that supports satellite call". Huawei Mate X5 supports two-way Beidou satellite messages. The Huawei Mate 60 Pro+ has dual satellite communication function, and when there is no terrestrial network, it can still communicate with the outside world through a variety of satellite systems. Includes satellite calls and satellite messages.
In February this year, an outdoor photographer and two donkey friends went deep into the Gongger grassland in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, when they accidentally encountered heavy winds and snowstorms on the way, causing a teammate Li to go missing. Li's location at that time belonged to a remote area with no ground network signal. Later, relying on the Beidou satellite communication function that comes with the Huawei Mate 50 mobile phone, he sent coordinate information to his teammates and was successfully rescued.
The Beijing News shell financial reporter learned from a staff member of China Telecom Satellite Communications Company that the satellite call service supported by Huawei Mate 60 Pro needs to go to the China Telecom business hall to open the "mobile phone direct satellite function", but this business of the business hall has not yet begun to be officially handled, "it will take a few more days for the business hall to be on the shelf."
Satellite phones are mainly used for outdoor emergency situations
Although Huawei said that the Mate 60 Pro is "the world's first mass smartphone that supports satellite calls", consumers who got the new machine found that the Mate 60 Pro packaging box was clearly marked as a "satellite mobile terminal". This aroused the curiosity of many people.
When introducing the satellite communication terminal products it sells, China Telecom Satellite Network Hall said that such products are widely used in outdoor tourism, off-road self-driving, scientific expeditions, hiking camping, emergency rescue and other fields.
The newly released Huawei Mate 60 Pro+ has dual satellite communication function, which can still communicate with the outside world through multiple satellite systems when there is no terrestrial network. The first is the Tiantong satellite call function, which can make and receive satellite calls, and can also edit satellite messages freely. The second is Beidou satellite messages, which can send or receive satellite messages through the Changlian application, and select multiple location information to generate a trajectory map.
The satellite call function used by Huawei is implemented through Tiantong satellite. Beijing News shell financial reporter learned that Tiantong satellite business is China Telecom relying on China's independent research and development of "Tiantong-1" satellite mobile communication system and network, Tiantong satellite has achieved comprehensive coverage of China's territory and territorial sea communication network, widely used in marine fishery, emergency rescue, tourism exploration, Internet of Things and other application scenarios.
The "Beidou Satellite News" is based on the Beidou-3 short message communication service development. Short message communication is a unique feature service that distinguishes BeiDou System from other global navigation satellite systems. The service covers China and neighboring countries and regions.
Are satellite communication tariffs expensive?
The Beijing News shell financial reporter learned from a staff member of China Telecom Satellite Communications Company that the current satellite call service supported by Huawei's new mobile phone such as Mate 60 Pro has a function fee of 10 yuan / month, and the subsequent call voice fee and other tariff standards are unknown.
The staff member further told reporters that users had to open satellite communication functions and had to be in telecommunications business halls
Purchase specialized satellite phone terminal products, as well as apply for special satellite phone cards. Because "ordinary mobile phone numbers cannot be processed", other smartphone terminals did not support satellite communication functions before.
The reporter noticed that the telecommunications satellite network hall shows that the special satellite phone card voice annual package is 1,000 yuan, including 750 minutes / year of domestic calls, 5 domestic text messages/year, 100 yuan of monthly SMS packages, including 300 text messages per month, and 1,000 yuan of annual SMS packages, including 3,600 domestic text messages. The tariff for exceeding the package is: 1.6 yuan / minute for domestic calls, and the main call is charged in both directions; Domestic SMS 0.4 yuan / message, free to receive; Calls to international calls and satellite calls to international numbers are subject to standard tariffs.
Global communication industry analyst Ma Bo believes that the above tariff standards are actually not expensive, he told the Beijing News shell financial reporter that the tariff of satellite communication business cannot be simply compared with the daily call tariff. "More importantly, in the past, if you wanted to realize the function of satellite call, you had to buy a satellite terminal with a size of several thousand."
The above-mentioned staff said that the tariff standard for upgrading the satellite communication function of Huawei's new mobile phone telecom card will be different from the above package standard, and the specific needs will be announced after the business hall goes online, and Huawei's new mobile phone users can also open satellite communication functions by purchasing a special satellite phone card in the telecom business hall.
The reporter saw in the China Telecom Satellite Network Hall that the price of special satellite telephone terminal products is about 5,000 yuan. However, there is also a 3999 yuan LeSat B52 satellite wizard, which can "provide other smartphones with Tiantong satellite access capability terminal device", so that all smartphones can make satellite calls and send text messages. The staff told reporters that special satellite telephone terminal products are indeed mainly purchased by outdoor people and emergency rescue personnel.
The market size may reach $10.9 billion
A commercial astronaut told the Beijing News shell financial reporter that because the Tiantong-1 satellite has been operating in the sky for several years, the current satellite communication fee is mainly behind the satellite operating costs and terminal service costs. Including equipment maintenance and personnel salaries, etc., "in the life phase of the operating satellite design, there is enough single volume to reduce marginal costs." ”
The person told reporters that if because of the emergence of Huawei's mate60 Pro series, which gradually leads to the popularity of satellite Internet mobile phones, the country has to launch more communication satellites to meet demand, then subsequent similar products will have to pay for the launch of new satellites.
Guosen Securities previously reported that satellite Internet has broad prospects. According to data from the Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the global satellite communication terminal market is expected to reach US$10.9 billion in 2027; Direct satellite and mobile phone connectivity has become a hot spot, and satellite communications as a complement to cellular networks can add $400 billion a year to operators' revenue. Low-orbit satellites are an important fulcrum for the reshaping of the development model of the satellite communication industry, and the industrial layout is accelerating. The construction of mainland low-orbit satellites has also entered the landing stage.
The above-mentioned commercial aerospace sources told reporters that the launch of Huawei's mobile phone satellite communication function is exciting news for the entire commercial aerospace field, because it explores the possibility of downstream commercial applications. "The current growth of commercial aerospace is stuck in the downstream application."
Ma Bo believes that its significance is mainly to change satellite communication into a consumer-level application. "Due to the life-saving effect of critical moments, it will trigger consumer-level application crowds. Although the satellite call function is not a function that everyone will inevitably use in this life, everyone will give priority to mobile terminals that support this function when purchasing, which will force mobile phone manufacturers to accelerate research and development, and gradually become the concentrated advantage of domestic smart phones. With the increase of users, the unit price will also decrease to a certain extent, and the satellite function and coverage will also be greatly improved, forming a virtuous circle. ”
It is worth noting that in February this year, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Qualcomm announced that it is working with companies such as Honor, Motorola, OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi to support manufacturers to use their previously released Snapdragon Satellite communication technology to develop smartphones with satellite communication capabilities. Qualcomm said that some Android phones will have these features by the second half of this year.
Beijing News shell financial reporter Sun Wenxuan
Edited by Xu Chao
Proofreading by Liu Baoqing