iPhone 13 Series: Low-orbit Satellite Communications
The iPhone signal has always been weaker than some of the Android flagships, and this is a problem that many Apple fans have been complaining about for years. iPhone signal problems can be traced back to the earliest baseband, before the iPhone 12, the first few generations of models are using Intel, but after changing the Qualcomm baseband, there seems to be no significant gain.
Apple may completely solve this problem in the iPhone 13 series, according to well-known analysts, Tianfeng Securities Ming-Chi Kuo in the latest report, iPhone 13 may support low-orbit satellite communications (LEO). So-called LEO, refers to the operation of the orbit between 500-2000 km from the ground earth satellite, making the transmission delay is short. Path loss is small and is considered the latest and most promising satellite mobile communication system.
Ming-Chi Kuo predicts that iPhone 13 will support Low-orbit satellite communications in hardware, and if Apple activates the software feature, iPhone 13 users will be able to make phone calls and send and receive messages via satellite when they are not in 4G or 5G coverage.
Apple may cooperate with the provision of satellite communication services in Globalstar, as well as Musk SpaceX’s Starlink. On the hardware side, iPhone 13 benefits from a custom X60 baseband, adding support for the Globalstar n53 band, a band not supported by the Snapdragon 888 integrated baseband. As for Android phones supporting low-orbit satellite communication models, we have to wait until the X65 baseband is commercially available.