Bullitt, Mediatek to make smartphones with 2-way satellite messaging

Bullitt Group, a British smartphone company, has partnered with the chipset supplier, MediaTek, to launch the world’s first smartphone to include two-way satellite messaging technology. The phone and OTT satellite service will be commercially available in the first quarter of 2023 and incorporate a free-of-charge satellite SOS feature.

Bullitt and MediaTek have worked together over the last 18 months to enable the addition of direct-to-satellite communication in the next generation of Bullitt-designed 5G smartphones. Bullitt is the first to use MediaTek’s 3GPP NTN (Non-Terrestrial Network) chipset. Proprietary software and service components have also been developed in parallel to provide the OTT satellite messaging service.

Device software is intelligent and switches to the satellite link only when no cellular or Wi-Fi connection is available. The service integrates with the user’s existing contacts to provide a seamless experience when using the satellite link to communicate with a phone on a cellular network. The time to initially connect to the satellite and send a message is around 10 seconds.

Bullitt designs and manufactures mobile phones under brand licenses from Cat (Caterpillar Inc) and Motorola.