Verizon Customers Get Satellite Messaging Later This Year

Verizon announced a partnership with Skylo this week, a Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) communications provider. The goal of the partnership is to provide access to satellite messaging for customers, but also continue to innovate in the satellite IoT technology space.

It’s no doubt you’ve been somewhere that cell service simply doesn’t exist. This is where satellites can step in to help fill those coverage gaps. When in this situation, Verizon customers with a supporting smartphone can enable emergency access to messaging and location sharing via these satellites. This is essentially the same thing as the SOS features we’ve seen from Google and Apple.

Verizon also details that starting next year, the company will offer the ability to text anywhere via satellite for customers with select devices.

Skylo utilizes dedicated, licensed mobile satellite spectrum for connectivity which avoids network interference with terrestrial signals and ensures ubiquitous coverage for customers in rural or rugged areas when low population density, technical challenges, and economic viability make building a cellular network infeasible.

This functionality will be rolling out to customers with supported phones later this year. We’ll keep you posted when more information is available.

// Verizon