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Apple has already given us a taste of satellite communications with the new iPhone 14 SOS feature, and soon Android phone users will have the chance to experience the technology.

Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon Satellite tech at the Consumer Electronics Show 2023 (CES 2023) this week, which promises to go one step ahead of Apple’s feature and give you two-way messaging support and other possible applications in the future. This means the top-end Android phones in 2023 will have the power to communicate via the satellite, and that too both ways, which the iPhones can’t do.

Qualcomm bringing this feature to Android is hardly surprising, with the prospect of Android 14 supporting the tech already mentioned quite a few times. Snapdragon Satellite will be enabled on phones powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset which is going to be the go-to SoC for flagship phones in the early part of 2023.

Qualcomm is bringing this tech with the help of Iridium Satellite Communications which is providing its L-band spectrum low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites for communications across the globe. But that’s not all, the Snapdragon hardware will also enable 5G-based network communications via satellite in the near future.

The chip giant confirms that devices capable of this technology will be rolling out in H2, 2023 but we are hoping to see the new batch of Snapdragon 8 Gen devices coming out before also having the capability to communicate via the satellite. Samsung is expected to offer this feature on the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S23 series, but we are not sure if Google will integrate this feature into its Tensor chips for the Pixel 8 series this year.

Apple’s satellite tech has been developed in house with the help of Globalstar, who is powering this feature. iPhone 14 series is the first Apple hardware to get this tech, and the company is offering the SOS messaging service for free for two years, after which the feature will be charged for the consumers.

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