At least four domestic satellite mobile phones will be launched in 2024, revealing the "secret operation" two years ago
Domestic mobile phones have entered the satellite era
Author/ IT Times reporter Sun Yan
Editor/ Hao Junhui Sun Yan
In September 2022, consumer-grade domestic mobile phones that can make satellite calls are about to be released. A year later, on August 29, 2023, Huawei launched the Huawei Mate 60 Pro, a popular smartphone that supports satellite calling.
In January 2023, a number of satellite communication industry experts predicted that the end of 2023 to the beginning of 2024 will be the outbreak period of direct connection of mobile phones to satellites. A year later, the once impossible challenge came to life, and domestic mobile phones entered the satellite era.
At the beginning of 2024, Honor, OPPO, and Xiaomi will "go to the stars" one after another. "This year, mainstream mobile phone manufacturers such as Huawei, Honor, and Xiaomi will directly connect to Tiantong Satellite and successively launch 4~5 satellite communication public mobile phones. China Telecom Satellite Corporation, the exclusive operator of Tiantong Satellite, cautiously estimated.
2024
Satellite communication has become standard for flagship mobile phones
The Huawei Mate 60 Pro has been on sale for 5 months and is still in a snap-up state.
Source: Oriental IC
In addition, the mainstream mobile phone for satellite communication that has been released is the Honor Magic 6, which is equipped with a mobile phone directly connected to the satellite solution - Honor Hongyan Communication. OPPO officially announced that the Find X7 Ultra satellite communication version will be released at the end of March this year. Xiaomi's first 5G satellite mobile terminal has been connected to the network, and a Xiaomi satellite mobile terminal with a model number of 2311BPN23C has passed the network access license for telecommunications equipment.
At present, there is no definite release of satellite communication news is vivo, industry rumors, vivo is still testing satellite communication mobile phones, speculation will be carried on vivo X100 high-end version of satellite communication function. At the MWC Shanghai exhibition held in July 2023, vivo's satellite communication test machine appeared at UNISOC booth, equipped with UNISOC's first satellite communication SoC chip V8821, which tested satellite communication functions such as data transmission, short message, location sharing and call in field verification.
"Vivo and Huawei's satellite communication technology is different. Industry insiders revealed to the "IT Times" reporter that each mobile phone manufacturer is tackling its own problems, aiming to develop differentiated satellite communication functions, for example, OPPO Find X7 Ultra will provide handsets and hands-free dual-mode satellite calls, breaking through the walkie-talkie mode, and returning to the posture of answering ordinary calls.
Two years
Glorious Satellite Breakout Battle
In January 2024, HONOR officially released the Magic 6, which solves the antenna performance problem with the help of the self-developed RF enhancement chip HONOR C1+, reducing the overall area of the satellite chip by about 40% and the standby power consumption by 50% after connecting the satellite. The Honor Magic6 Pro can still support 8 minutes of real-time satellite voice or send 16 two-way satellite text messages in 5% ultra-low power scenarios.
Honor is the first mainstream domestic mobile phone manufacturer to release satellite communications after Huawei.
"We have carried out 15,900 kilometers of special tests, covering many cities and border areas across the country. At the Digital Technology Ecology Conference in November 2023, HONOR reviewed the process of in-depth cooperation with China Telecom in the past two years to jointly overcome the three major technical problems of direct connection of mobile phones to satellites.
The first technical difficulty is antenna miniaturization, the external antenna is implanted into the mobile phone, after two years of exploration, Honor uses self-developed antenna design and software and hardware collaboration to improve antenna performance, the goal is to achieve the antenna performance of professional satellite phones on ordinary mobile phones; the second difficulty is power consumption and heat dissipation, Honor found in the initial program evaluation, the power consumption of satellite network calls is more than 4 times the power consumption of ordinary cellular networks, and the large power consumption also leads to serious heating, and the call duration has to be limited, and satellite calls cannot be used in low power conditions; the third difficulty is chip miniaturization, the area of satellite chips and peripheral circuit boards, which is twice that of the Bluetooth and WiFi communication subsystems, and at that time Honor had already reduced the area of the chip motherboard by 30%.
Three years
Satellite chip shipments may exceed 50 million
In less than two months, the size of the satellite chip has shrunk by another 10%, how did Honor do it?
Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor, revealed at the press conference that Honor chose to work with domestic partners to rebuild the chip system solution, so that the satellite communication technology has the ability of miniaturization and low-power processing.
According to Lei Feng and other media reports, the main IC supplier of Honor Satellite Communication is Zhongke Jingshang, and other mobile phone manufacturers may follow up with the same satellite communication solution.
Tianyancha shows that the full name of Zhongke Jingshang is Beijing Zhongke Jingshang Technology Co., Ltd., which is controlled by the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences with a 30.57% share ratio.
"I look forward to seeing the shadow of glory in the satellite communication solutions of other manufacturers. Zhao Ming repeatedly emphasized at the press conference that after full verification on the mobile phone, Honor will also share its satellite communication technology with the entire industry, and it is expected to be open to more manufacturers in a few months.
"For satellite chip companies, it is a big benefit, before the mobile phone is directly connected to the satellite, the satellite chip is in the hands of traditional manufacturers such as China Electronics Technology Group Corporation and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the demand is also very small. According to Hu Hui (pseudonym), a person in the satellite communication circle, with the direct connection of the two major consumer markets of mobile phones and automobiles to satellites, the satellite chip industry has been brought to the fire.
Previously, according to the investigation of the "IT Times" reporter, the satellite chips of the Huawei Mate 60 Pro series were customized by the research institute under CETC and Huali Chuangtong, accounting for about 7:3. As the shipments of Huawei's Mate 60 Pro series have been raised again and again, the stock prices of the two satellite chip suppliers and their affiliates have risen accordingly.
According to the "China Telecom 5G NTN Technology White Paper" released in November 2023, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology estimates that the shipment of NTN (non-terrestrial network) chips is expected to exceed 50 million pieces within three years, and the massive number of ordinary mobile phone user groups will greatly reduce the cost of satellite chips, terminal modules, and mobile phones, making it economically feasible for mobile phones to directly connect to satellites.
In addition to the direct connection of mobile phones to satellites, direct connection of cars to satellites has also become a major trend. According to China Telecom's forecast, by 2025, the sales of directly connected to satellites will exceed 1 million units, and the sales of mobile phone terminals directly connected to satellites will exceed 20 million units.
Industry insiders believe that the evolution trend of satellite communications, whether it is mobile phones or automobiles, will expand from high-end to low-end, with the scale development of satellite communications in the civilian market, will further reduce the related costs, so that every ordinary user can afford to "never lose contact" satellite communications.
Three levels
China Telecom's mobile phone direct satellite program
As we all know, domestic mobile phone manufacturers can't avoid Tiantong Satellite if they want to launch mobile phone direct connection satellites, and its exclusive operator is China Telecom. Tiantong satellite is a high-orbit satellite, 36,000 kilometers above the ground, and the current three Tiantong satellites can basically meet the satellite communication needs in China.
In November 2023, at the China Telecom Digital Technology Ecology Conference, China Telecom Satellite announced that in addition to in-depth cooperation with Huawei, it is also actively exploring in-depth cooperation with domestic mainstream mobile phone manufacturers such as Honor, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, ZTE, and Meizu, and strives to launch more flagship mobile phones that can be directly connected to satellites in 2024. Shao Yantao, deputy general manager of China Telecom's marketing department, said that in 2024, the group's centralized procurement of flagship models of directly connected satellites will exceed 5 million units.
China Telecom's mobile phone direct satellite plan dates back to 2021.
In May of this year, in the Gansu Baiyin Mountain Marathon, more than 20 runners were killed due to sudden weather changes. In late July 2021, heavy rains in Henan paralyzed the local communication system. An idea began to haunt Yang Lingcai, general manager of China Telecom Satellite Company: if every ordinary mobile phone could be directly connected to the satellite, then everyone would be able to call for help at a critical moment.
A meeting on the direct connection of mobile phones to satellites quietly unfolded in the office of China Telecom Satellite Company, and on this day, the meeting was held for a long time, and all technical experts in the industry at that time thought: "This cannot be done, and the technology and cost are very difficult." ”
In October 2021, China Telecom Satellite Corporation began technical feasibility demonstration and simulation experiments. In the first half of 2022, China Telecom Satellite Corporation achieved one card and two networks, allowing users to access both the terrestrial cellular network and the satellite network without changing cards or numbers.
At the same time, China Telecom, together with mobile phone terminal manufacturers and other industry chain partners, began to overcome two other difficulties.
The second level is to "lose weight" for the chip, the size of the satellite chip is equivalent to the watch dial in the past, but the mobile phone motherboard is "every inch of land", leaving not much space for the satellite chip, how to integrate it into half the size of a fingernail, is a great challenge.
The third level is how to implant the antenna into the mobile phone, the satellite mobile phone relies on the "pigtail" to contact the satellite 36,000 kilometers away, the initial scheme tends to be simple to implement, such as making the mobile phone antenna into a mobile phone chain, hanging on the mobile phone, and screwing it on when you use it, but the user experience of this scheme is not friendly. Even if the antenna is implanted in the mobile phone, the gain of the antenna cannot meet the industry standard, and the satellite signal cannot be stably received, and the satellite network side also needs to be transformed.
Since then, experts from China Telecom Satellite Company have thought of two ways to increase gain, one is to increase the signal power, and the other is to reduce the information rate, just like when two people are far away, either raise their voices and shout, or speak more slowly, and the other party can hear more clearly.
In 15 months, the China Telecom Satellite team traveled to Lop Nur, Qiangtang, Sanya, Mohe and other areas with difficult terrestrial network coverage to test two-way voice calls and SMS sending and receiving. It is often a month or two to walk, and the journey is 20,000 kilometers.
On September 8, 2023, China Telecom's mobile phone direct satellite service was launched, and in just a few months, China Telecom's Tiantong satellite users have doubled.
Four months later, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have released new mass mobile phones directly connected to satellites, truly opening the satellite era.
Typesetting / Ji Jiaying
Photo / Honor, China Telecom Satellite Corporation, Oriental IC
来源／《IT时报》公众号vittimes
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