Last month Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple Invested $450 Million to Enhance the iPhone 14 with an Emergency SOS Satellite Service that Launches later this month." Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially granted Apple a patent titled "Communication Terminal." A few of the inventors behind Apple's Emergency SOS Satellite Service are listed in today's granted patent, that appears to go far beyond mere emergency services to providing future services related to streaming video, television data, telephone calls and more.

Apple's patent is definitely going to be appreciated by wireless engineers, as most of it dives deep into the mechanics of satellite communications. Yet there is one key passage covering patent FIG. 2 that most will understand.

Apple's patent FIG. 2 below covers transceivers (#28) that may each be satellite communications transceivers. If desired, transceivers #28 may include other transceiver circuitry for handling wireless local area network communications, wireless personal area network communications, cellular telephone communications, or other non-satellite and/or terrestrial communications using antenna radiators #30. Satellite communications data conveyed by transceivers #28 and antenna radiators #30 may include media data (e.g., streaming video, television data, satellite radio data, etc.), voice data (e.g., telephone voice data), internet data, and/or any other desired data.

Apple's patent FIG. 5 above is a diagram of illustrative antenna modules having corresponding lenses and radiators that may be selectively activated to direct radio-frequency signals in different directions; FIG. 11 is a flow chart of illustrative steps involved in operating a phased array of antenna modules.

Apple's massive investment in their satellite service makes more sense if they envision future services that they'll be able to capitalize on.

For more details, Wireless engineers and super geeks should review Apple's granted patent US 11528076 B1.

Apple Inventors 

• Matt Ettus: Technical Leader and Co-Founder of Satellite Connectivity Group. Worked on Apple's new SOS over Satellite system for iPhone.
• Michael Trela: Sr. Director, Satellite Connectivity Group
• Simone Paulotto: Sr. Antenna/Wireless Manager
• Carlo Di Nallo: Antenna/Wireless Product Design

As Apple's granted patent comes to light, Apple has announced that the iPhone 14's SOS Emergency Service is now available in the UK, France, Germany and other countries.