Upcoming Motorola Defy will be Bullitt’s first phone with satellite SMS service
Motorola and Bullitt announce the next Motorola Defy smartphone that will be the first phone to support Bullitt’s new satellite emergency messaging service. This emergency messaging service works with the Bullitt Satellite Messenger app and geostationary satellites from Inmarsat, among others.
Bullitt developed a special modem chip for the Sattelite Connect service in collaboration with Mediatek, separate from the normal 5G modem. A suitable device also contains an extra antenna. The two-way satellite messaging service works through the Bullitt Satellite Messenger app on the device. With that app, users can send messages of up to 140 characters long, share their location with a click or send an SOS message. The app first checks whether you can connect to a WiFi network or a mobile network. If this is not possible, the app will search for a satellite connection. Such a satellite connection requires the user to have a view of the sky, but it is not necessary to aim the phone, because Bullitt uses geostationary satellites. The message arrives as a text message to the recipient and supported phones through the Messenger app.
For the service, Bullitt works with Skylo, among others, which built and operates the network. That network in turn uses geostationary satellites from Inmarsat, among others. Bullitt developed the Messenger app itself. The emergency function is free for the first twelve months. To send other messages, users pay at least five dollars per month for 30 messages.
Bullitt announced the service in November, saying it would take about 10 seconds to send a message. The company demonstrated this in practice at CES, using pre-production models of the Motorola Defy, the first phone to support the new satellite SMS service. Bullitt previously made a Defy smartphone under the Motorola brand name and is not giving any further details about that new phone, other than that it will be announced at the upcoming Mobile World Congress trade show at the end of February.
In the past year, several smartphone companies have indicated that they are working on satellite messaging services. Bullitt claims the Defy will be the first rugged smartphone to support satellite messaging. Bullitt’s service will initially be available in Europe and North America, with other regions to follow later this year.
Update 9:35 am: Post has been updated with information from the exchange.