Samsung Galaxy S25 Approved by FCC with Satellite Connectivity

The FCC has approved a new Samsung phone that is almost certainly next year's Galaxy S25 flagship model. While the public approval documents contain little interesting detail and few surprises, they do confirm that the phone will include specific support for satellite service in the upper L-band (band 255). Verizon all but announced this capability when they recently announced that their own new satellite service would support "upcoming Galaxy devices" from Samsung. Apple and Google already offer phones with this feature, known in the industry as NTN (Non-Terrestrial Networks). The FCC approval also confirms mmWave 5G, Bluetooth 5.4, Wi-Fi 6E, NFC, and wireless charging. Not mentioned are Thread and UWB support, although the S25+ and S25 Ultra models have yet to be approved. The model approved today is the "SM-S931U"; last year's S24 for the US was the SM-S921U and the S23 was the SM-S911U.