NEHALEM, Ore. — When I bought myself a phone that was built for satellite texting, nearly three years ago, I never thought my first opportunity to make a space-based connection would come in a cozy Oregon cafe.
But there I was, standing up and pointing my iPhone toward the sky to find a signal while the rest of my family was eating brunch. It was my first lesson in the nuts and bolts of direct-to-cell satellite phone service — the sort of lesson that some smartphone users might be learning under more dire circumstances.
One of the big selling points for the iPhone 14 that I bought in 2022 was that you could send emergency SOS messages via the Globalstar satellite network if you ran into trouble in a cellular dead zone. GeekWire co-founder John Cook learned his lesson about the emergency alert system when he inadvertently triggered “the worst butt-dial” of his life during a hike through Dinosaur National Monument in 2023.
Since then, telecom network operators have worked to widen subscribers’ access to satellite texting, in recognition of the fact that you don’t need to have an emergency to appreciate being able to communicate from a dead zone.
