In the past year, the satellite industry has been a part of a slew of announcements about direct-to-device and satellite to cell. Now, major names in cellular industries and devices like Apple, Qualcomm, and T-Mobile are all working with satellite companies. 

Tarun Gupta, chief product officer and co-founder of Skylo Technologies joins On Orbit this week to talk about the growth in the direct-to-device market. Skylo had been working on its own tech stack to connect devices directly to satellite before 3GPP release 17 standards, but Tarun says that the standards release along with the iPhone 14 were both major catalysts in opening up this market. 

In the past, OEMs didn't believe small devices could connect directly to satellite, and now companies are asking how fast devices can be brought online. In this episode, Tarun talks about trends in this market, the enabling technologies and developments, and use cases like remote power line monitoring for wildfires. We also talk about Skylo’s recent announcement with Qualcomm.