The difference in latency caused by the time it takes light to travel to a satellite 500 miles up vs 900 miles up is fractions of a second, and meaningless compared to human reaction time when talking about an emergency response.

As in Android devices on T-Mobile network? Don’t ask me why people were making the false claims.

Our local highway lacks cell coverage for the majority of it. Accidents turn deadly because the environment is harsh and you can't call for help without a satellite phone.

In our area (BC, Highway 16, West from Smithers onwards). Improved cell coverage on the highway is a talking point and stuff like this will help.

Latency = speed if you’re talking about how quickly a message is delivered, aka how quickly it reaches emergency services on the ground

Iridium? There’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time! I figured they went under back in the early 2000’s.

You're confusing speed with latency.

What does Elon have to do with Android?

Shit like this is gonna save so many lives.

I'm all for satellite connected phones. In every way. Connect to all of them. Iridium, Starlink, whatever the fuck apple's working on.

So after that, Android users can claim that Android dit it years before Apple /s

sigh opens up Stardew

They both drive you places

Nintendo 3ds did this years ago

Relative to each other?

https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/gas6n/how_do_they_manage_to_put_satellites_into_orbit/c1m70g8?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3

As someone who’s worked with Iridium, yikes.

It was Motorola who was going to crash the satellites rather than keep maintaining them. They spent tons of money develop h the system for the completely wrong market (which was completely taken over by widespread cell phones).

Iridium is the name of the satellite constellation as well as the company that was eventually formed to save the satellites (was a mess getting funding and insurance agreements that Motorola would accept). The system is still highly used for remote wildness communication (such as Garmin InReach), satellite phones by military and other expeditionary groups, and making inroads to take marker share from companies like IMARSAT for cruise ships and airlines.

The satellites are still very much functioning and in use and new ones being launched.

Probably because Elon said he would use existing T-Mobile bands, and phrased it as if it’s already working

Space is. Earth orbit isn't

The nice thing about this is that it won't require a new device to use either. Since they are using PCS spectrum just about any device will be able to connect and use it.

I agree - but I’ve always heard Iridium is slower because of the processing time or whatever occurs when linking satellites. I could have misheard

But if you read Iridium’s statement they say: faster than globalstar because we don’t require ground stations. That part makes zero sense.

Yes, Time magazine still is in business

So wizard.

I would assume that the time it takes to broadcast between satellites is negligible in the overall process (milliseconds?). If you could somehow save a second or two in overall connection time (on ground relays, finding a site that could route it more seemlessly, whatever), it wouldn't matter if you had to beam it back and forth between satellites 100 times to get it there, it could still be faster.

​

you could be right that the overall service might be way worse, but doubtful that 'beaming between satellites' vs direct ground retransmission would make any difference except in slight audio quality vs 'speed of emergency services being services being dispatched'.

No, the confusing part is that when Apple released this feature, there were so many people saying it already existed on Android.

Yes.

Pretty sure tensor runs on Samsung modems