Clearly bullshit. One crate of beer for whoever/ the first person , who proofs me wrong.
Also funny: "using off the shelf chip and a software update" is also a joke. Those IC's are software defined radios...
Qualcom, Broadcom, spectrum regulatory authorities, whoever, won't let you do it. ( But the latter might send you to prison for trying to break the laws of men & physics )
I'm skeptical about the company's claims however I disagree with your comment.
You can do firmware updates on bluetooth chipsets, say for example Silicon Labs EFR32, to have a custom 2.4 ghz protocol. Wirepas is an example of a proprietary protocol that runs on 802.15.4 SoCs.
>Also, ofcourse you can change the software of a software defined radio. Why do we even have to mention this here ?
You've interpreted their hand wavey marketing statement far too literally. Of course a plain vanilla bluetooth hardware + software stack won't be able to communicate with a satellite. They are saying that you can run their protocol on standard bluetooth chipsets for people who are designing NEW products. Loading a custom protocol onto an already certified product would nullify its certification. Why do we have to mention this here ?
"Off the shelf IC" is a red herring and marketing BS, IMHO. Of course it can be bone with off the shelf Bluetooth ICs (unless delays restriction?), this is not the issue, which is the RF frontend and antenna to get that increased range.
It is very bold to claim that a phone can beam Bluetooth up to satellite with just a firmware update.
Regarding firmware patching, look at InternalBlue [1]. I guess they did it for one IC, but obviously can't do it at will for just any IC and instead hand wave "it can be done".
Overall I don't think it's impossible: Someone stated it would be unidirectional, and the bitrate was not given (read: could even be minutes per bit for all we know).
But yeah, I'm sceptical, too. A gateway would have made more sense to me, because it does not require firmware-level cooperation with chip set manufacturers and you can reuse existing space networks. Especially since they're not aiming to add the feature into future ICs (which could have driven sales across the whole industry), but backport it instead, competing with the manufacturers and voiding existing FCC et al. certification.
Also funny: "using off the shelf chip and a software update" is also a joke. Those IC's are software defined radios... Qualcom, Broadcom, spectrum regulatory authorities, whoever, won't let you do it. ( But the latter might send you to prison for trying to break the laws of men & physics )