Satellite connectivity

Android 15 and higher provides comprehensive platform support for satellite connectivity, also known as non-terrestrial networks (NTNs). This framework integration lets supported devices establish connections and use critical services even when standard terrestrial cellular and Wi-Fi networks are unavailable.

Device manufacturers can use the AOSP telephony satellite stack to implement satellite capabilities seamlessly, ensuring hardware compatibility with core Android messaging, data routing, and emergency systems.

Supported features

The Android framework natively provides core technical capabilities to handle and route specific services over constrained NTNs:

  • Emergency services: Enables users to contact emergency services (such as text-to-911) when roaming outside of terrestrial coverage.

  • Peer-to-peer messaging: Supports standard peer-to-peer (P2P) text-based messaging (SMS, MMS, and RCS) over satellite networks. The platform telephony layer dynamically manages the transmission queues, link availability, and payload sizing to optimize text delivery over satellite data channels.

  • Location sharing: Integrates with platform location services and the LocationManager framework to let users share their precise latitude and longitude coordinates through supported apps (such as Google Maps) over satellite-native signaling channels.

  • Data services: Supports routing standard IP data packets over satellite connections. The platform handles two primary tiers of data access:

  • Constrained (light) data: The framework and network policies restrict background data access to specific core services and allowlisted apps to prevent excessive bandwidth usage. If you're an app developer looking to optimize your app for constrained satellite networks, see Develop for constrained satellite networks.

  • Unconstrained data: Supports full internet protocol data routing (subject to availability, hardware capability and carrier configurations).

Technical architecture overview

The telephony satellite stack is integrated directly into the AOSP Telephony framework. The stack interacts with the device's modem through a standardized hardware abstraction layer (HAL).

  • AOSP satellite framework: The framework manages the high-level state machine for satellite connectivity, overrides default terrestrial routing rules during satellite attach windows, monitors modem signal quality, and provides the core SatelliteManager API.
  • Modem HAL (ISatellite): Device manufacturers must implement the standard ISatellite HAL AIDL interface (introduced in Android 15) to bridge framework commands to vendor-specific modem firmware. This interface controls modem power states, satellite listening windows, and raw data packet transmission.
  • Network policy and routing: AOSP Connectivity services use custom firewall chains and data saver extensions to manage network traffic when the device attaches to an NTN PLMN, protecting the link from unoptimized application traffic.
  • Dynamic configuration: Satellite service parameters (such as entitlement server URLs, allowed PLMN lists, and default supported modes) are pushed dynamically to the device. AOSP supports both standard CarrierConfigManager XML pushes and dynamic authentication using GSMA TS.43 entitlement servers.

Verification

To verify your implementation of the platform satellite features, device manufacturers and chip vendors must ensure that their modems pass all associated Android verification suites.

Onboarding and partner integration

Android provides a self-serve onboarding workflow for integrating your network with the Android ecosystem. For more information, send an email to android-satellite-support@google.com.