SCIO press conference on white paper 'China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System in the New Era'
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 11, 2022
Tianmu News:
You mentioned mass consumption and mass applications, and now we have no sense of security without mobile phones. Not long ago, the first mobile phone to support Beidou-3's short message communication service was launched. I would like you to elaborate further on it. How was this function realized? And will other mobile phones and smartphones also support this function in the future? Thank you.
Ran Chengqi:
Thank you for your question. I wanted to share this but never got a chance to do so. The application of BDS short message communication services to mobile phones is a dream we had as early as BDS-3 was proposed and approved. In addition to positioning and navigation services, BDS-3 also features a short message communication service. This function is amazing, but its application requires an expensive, exclusive terminal that must be independent of mobile phones and thus would bring a lot of inconveniences. At that time, we wondered if this function could be incorporated into mobile phones. This was a good concept, but we faced many technical problems. It takes 10 years to sharpen a sword, and it took us 10 years to work on this function. We achieved it thanks to China's progress in communications, our technological advances in the chip industry, and especially to the mobile operators and mobile phone producers.
We first built a short messaging civil platform for BDS to deliver all the short message services. It is available to China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom users if combined with these mobile operators. However, it posed a great technical challenge to include these services in mobile phones. We often said it was one of our dreams to directly connect satellites with mobile phones. Today, we've achieved it. We made the terminal miniaturized and chip-based with low power consumption to realize the function. It was not our purpose to adopt another independent terminal. We wanted the function to be included in mobile phones. Thanks to our technological progress and joint efforts, we solved the issue by developing the BDS short message communication radio-frequency baseband integrated chip technology.
The function was finally included in modern mobile phones as a chip and perfectly integrated. Today's chip owes much to the efforts of mobile phone manufacturers, who did an excellent job dealing with the technical system, signal design and key problems. The current chip can be made into a mobile phone roughly at the cost of 10 yuan ($1.38) without changing the phone card and number or adding peripherals. There is no difference between a BDS-enabled mobile phone and other mobile phones. However, with this chip, we can send information through this mobile phone when there is no mobile signal. The advantage is that you can still send text messages, report your location, and provide your location track in that case. You may think that this function can hardly be felt in daily life. But ask yourself how you would feel if your mobile phone had no service, but was equipped with this function. I often say that you may never use the function, but you gain a sense of security. Nowadays, it has been widely applied to many mobile phones. You will have a sense of security if you can always connect with the outside or be seen online. The status is the security guarantee BDS provides.
In the future, we also plan to open the technology to domestic mobile phone manufacturers to provide better services. We hope more domestic mobile phone manufacturers and operators will participate. What we especially want to see is that BDS telecommunication services contribute much to our economy and society and provide a more reliable guarantee for public travel safety. We have realized the function. We can ensure that BDS-3 service covers people in the Asia-Pacific based on its capability. With a mobile phone in hand, one can travel over the Asia-Pacific and even the world. BDS has also set a precedent for direct satellite connection with mobile phones. The exploration is helpful. Some international mobile phone brands are also in pursuit of this function. From this point of view, applying BDS short message communication services to mobile phones is leading to progress in innovation. Thank you.
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