British smartphone company Bullitt on Friday launched a new phone that can send text messages through space, joining the frenzied race to commercialize satellite devices.
The phone, which fits into the category of durable handsets that are “rigid”, is available in two versions: the Cat S75 of the Caterpillar brand, which is aimed at the European market and will be sold at a price of 599 euros ($634.49), and the Motorola Defy 2, which caters for North America at a starting price of $599.
Both phones come with 5G connectivity, a 6.6-inch screen and a 5,000 milliampere hour battery, which Bullitt says can last up to two days.
With the Bullitt phone, messages are sent to a geostationary satellite some 22,000 miles above the equator, then relayed back to the earth-based network infrastructure before reaching the user’s device.
Users receive messages as standard SMS. They must have Bullitt Messenger — the company’s exclusive satellite messaging app — installed in order to reply.
A text takes about 10 seconds, compared to the lightning-fast speed of a cell phone. The satellite connection is only turned on when the user cannot reach Wi-Fi or mobile network signal.
News of the new Bullitt phone comes shortly after Apple announced the launch of the iPhone 14, which has a feature to contact emergency services via satellite. The feature is available in the US, UK, France, Germany and Ireland.
Device makers like Apple and chip companies like Qualcomm are betting on an untapped opportunity to put satellite phones in the hands of people in remote areas inaccessible to terrestrial telecommunications infrastructure.
Connecting to satellites allows messages to reach large swathes of land not picked up by earth-based mobile devices. Cell towers are more limited in coverage, meaning that if you stray from one, you’ll lose signal.
It can be useful, if you are a person lost on a mountain track in a remote place, or a worker on a remote construction site who needs to contact the boss, but cannot access mobile data.
Satellite phones have been in the works for decades, but have yet to enter mainstream use. Bullitt hopes to change this with equipment. Many satellite phones are clunky rectangular objects with large, visible antennas. But the Bullitt phone looks like a regular smartphone, thanks to the satellite-enabled chip from the Taiwanese semiconductor company MediaTek.
“This is definitely not a gimmick,” Tim Shepherd, Bullitt’s senior director of application and product marketing, told CNBC.
“Reliable communications beyond the traditional range of cellular networks is a major problem for many people, and satellite technology is now at the right level of maturity to solve this problem.”
Bullitt says the phone is more advanced than Apple’s, allowing for two-way SMS messaging, as well as an emergency SOS feature the company developed in cooperation with critical event management company Focuspoint International.
The rates for Bullitt’s two-way messaging service are set at 4.99 euros for the basic plan with 30 messages per month, 9.99 euros for 125 messages per month, and 29.99 euros for 400 messages per month.
In comparison, rival company Garmin charges £19 for 10 texts a month, £32 for 60 texts a month, and £58 for 250 texts a month, on top of a one-off activation fee of £35.
Apple’s Emergency SOS feature, which does not enable two-way messaging, is free for two years after activating the iPhone 14 or iPhone 14 Pro.
The iPhone maker hasn’t announced the price for the service, after the deadline.
Bullitt also launched a Bluetooth accessory, the Motorola Defy Satellite Link, which allows Android or iOS devices to connect to the Bullitt Satellite Messenger app, effectively turning any phone into a satellite phone. The puck-shaped device, priced at $99, will be available in the second quarter.
Ben Wood, principal analyst at CCS Insight, said that Bullitt targets a niche market, and that the solution is more suitable for countries with large landmasses, such as the US and Australia.
“This company was a trailblazer for satellite messaging but the competition has moved very quickly,” Wood told CNBC. “That said, the target market for these devices fits the technology well enough to have a good niche to target.”
Bullitt will support satellite coverage in Europe and North America at launch, with Australia and New Zealand, Africa and Latin America to follow in mid-2023.
The company was previously responsible for what it called the world’s first thermal imaging smartphone, the Cat S60, in 2016. At the time, the company believed that the feature would be in 50% of smartphones within five years, a prediction that didn’t happen. come that way.