Bullitt, what is going on with regard to the Motorola Defy - Satellite Link?

When the Motorola Defy Satellite link was launched by Bullitt in late June 2023 it certainly was a disrupter in the market place of two-way satellite communicators.

Then in late January 2024 it was announced that Bullitt had gone out of business, lots of speculation started at this point with regard to the future of their Motorola Defy – satellite link, the ground-breaking product that many outdoor enthusiasts used, without Bullitt there was there products going to stop working?

In this article we look at what we know to date – Start of March 2024

Timeline - Starting with the most recent update.

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1. Video update - what is going on?

The questions we will be answering –

00:00 – Introduction to the latest edition of FAQ’s – Motorola Defy – Satellite Link.

01:00 – Why have we not discussed this subject before, our sources and some background.

03:25 – Will your existing Motorola Defy – satellite Link continue to work?

03:50 – What will happen when your current contract finishes?

07:10 – Will live tracking be introduced on the Motorola Defy – Satellite Link?

07:55 – If you buy a new Motorola Defy – Satellite Link can you activate it and will it work?

09:44 – Please do share your thoughts, feedback and please lets share your knowledge if you have any.

Introduction

We have tried not to speculate, I have been updating a web page and discussed it on our podcast periodically as we found out anything but we have been keen not to speculate –

• As many staff have lost there jobs
• My contact at Bullitt went very quiet on me, and I prefer only to share information that has come from a reliable source
• My contact, now at RDC, has started talking to me again.
  
  RDC, the company that bought on the 12^th March 2024 a number of things

1. Goodwill (including IPR, Business name, brands, and website)
2. BSS software
3. IOS and Android Apps
4. Domain names for software
5. Customer database of the current subscribers
6. Satellite messenger trademark (logo and word marks).
7. Bullitt name trademark
8. 3 x registered patents in process of being registered
9. Any Other PI owned by the Companies which is used in connection with the delivery of the satellite service, including but not limited to all copyright in website contents

Source of above - Statement of administrator's proposal, on Companies House (dated 6th March 2024) - 51 page document

So they have everything to keep the service to customers going.

- Will you existing Motorola Defy – Satellite link continue to work?

Yes, the new business (RDC 2023 Ltd) are no longer going to produce this hardware, but they will continue to sell satellite contracts so they will continue to work going forward.

- What will happen when your current contract finishes?

All Motorola Defy – satellite links sold came with contracts ‘in the box’, these will all expire or run out at the end of June in our customers case, as this is when we started to ship out this product. 

As part of our investment, RCD is very pleased to confirm that it will honour the service agreements and data plans for the thousands of existing subscribers who signed up to the Bullitt Satellite Messenger service prior to April 3rd 2024.

From April 3rd 2024, the following price plans will be immediately available to all NEW subscribers with others to follow:

New Service plans – put these on the screen, but these start are all 12 month contracts, from 

-£4.99/ month – SOS only

- £9.99/ month – SOS and 80 messages/ month

- £29.99/ month – SOS and 300 messages/ month

Or £59.00/ year for 250 messages/ year. You can add another 250 messages for same price if you use all these.

**Disclaimer
Messaging plans are based on bytes of data, rather than message count – any reference to a number of messages per plan featured in marketing is purely illustrative. Shorter messages that use smaller amounts of data allow messaging to be maximized. All satellite data transmissions use up satellite data at a minimum of 50 bytes, including sending and receiving messages, and delivery receipts – excluding SOS messages that are offered free of charge and not limited. For more information, see our Terms of Use. 

These you will be able to sign up to via the app.

- Will live tracking be introduced in the future, as originally planned?

Yes, it will.

After a phone call with my contact at RCD yesterday he has confirmed this will be rolled out over the coming months.

As you will know here at GPS Training we have been Beta testing this and it is working well.

We, sadly to date do not have a timescale of this being rolled out.

- If you buy a new Motorola Defy – Satellite Link can you activate and use it?

Yes, you can, but you will have to sign up to a contract from day 1

i.e. the contract in the box, as it was it now no longer valid.

BUT, at this moment in time no more hardware will be produced. 

So if you went for a basic package - £9.99/ month you get 80 satellite messages/ month and SOS

It is very hard to compare this to other providers for a number of reasons, but it is very cheap. 

There are reasons for that and I discuss these in this FAQ’s video, in this I discuss in the video I will link to above -

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2. Warranty of Bullit's Motorola Defy - Satellite Link

The warranty was issued by Bullitt Mobile Limited.

Bullitt Mobile Limited has not entered into administration.

Source of the above info regarding warranty can be found here.

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3. Update 12th March 2024 - x 3 former directors (trading under RCD 2023 Limited) have bought -

4. We are over that time period (1 month of service) and everything is still working, so what is going on? 

Our understanding of the situation - Bullitt and the Motorola Defy - Satellite Link

So, as I understand it - 

In conversations I have had with our contacts at Bullitt stated that the  administrators where negotiating with interested parties and it sounds like this has taken place as 'Intellectual Property and certain other assets of the Companies were sold, along with Bullitt Satellite Connect Limited’s customer contracts'.

So, let’s see what the future brings

We were under the understanding that customers would be notified if anything was to change, but to date nobody has received any notifications, so no news is good news.

Motorola – will they let the Motorola Defy - Satellite Link go to the wall?

Amazon stated to a customer who requested to return a product after hearing about the demise of Bullitt that, ‘Although Bullitt, a licensee of Motorola and Caterpillar, is folding – Motorola is not.

The product should still be fully functional and there will be more articles in the coming weeks regarding updates to the partnership between Bullitt and Motorola.

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5. Statement - 5/4/2024 - An Important Update from Bullitt Satellite Messenger

We would like to confirm that the the Bullitt Satellite Messenger service is live and fully operational. Since being acquired in February 2024 by RCD 2023 Limited (a UK registered company), the service has continued without interruption and continues to be the world’s leading direct to device NTN messaging service.

As part of our investment, RCD is very pleased to confirm that it will honour the service agreements and data plans for the thousands of existing subscribers who signed up to the Bullitt Satellite Messenger service prior to April 3rd 2024. From April 3rd 2024, the following price plans will be immediately available to all new subscribers with others to follow:

SOS satellite assist only - $4.99 per month
Everyday messaging (up to 80 messages per month) - $9.99 per month*
Premium messaging (up to 300 messages per month) - $29.99 per month*
Freedom (unto 250 messages per year) - $59.99 as one off annual payment*

*All messaging plans include SOS Satellite assist. Further information on data plans can be found on the bullitt.com website. For more information in other currencies please see website.

The following devices are and remain compatible with the Bullitt Satellite Messenger service:
Cat S75
motorola defy satellite link
Ulefone Armour 23.  

We are pleased to announce that we are also working closely with a number of other device manufacturers to add NTN messaging capability to their product portfolios through 2024 and beyond.

Please note that RCD is not a device manufacturer and our customer support centre is only able to help with enquires regarding the SOS or satellite messaging service. Please also note that the promotional offer of 12 months free of charge SOS assist and basic messaging previously offered when purchasing a Cat S75 or motorola defy satellite link expired on 30th December 2023. Anyone purchasing an NTN satellite compatible device from April 3rd will require a data plan to enjoy satellite connectivity.

Aside from the continued support for existing customers, RCD has committed to make significant investment to add new features and capabilities to the service and platform over the coming months ensuring that Bullitt Satellite Messenger sets the gold standard for Mission and Business critical NTN comms.

We are in the final stages of testing for a new tracking feature and portal and this update will be released in the coming weeks. As early as June, we will be launching Bullitt Satellite Messenger for Business providing SME’s and channel resellers the ability to manage their services, accounts and billing all in one place via the Bullitt For Business Portal. We will also be Launching Bullitt Satellite For Enterprise an SDK and NTN Connectivity platform enabling developers and Enterprises to add NTN connectivity to an existing application or solution to support both mission critical comms and NTN NBIoT.

There will be lots more updates on our website over the next few weeks.

Bullitt Satellite

 

7 - 30^th January 2024 – Bullitt announces that they are going to cease trading – Read about this on The Verge

At the time we personally spoke to our contacts within Bullitt and we understood that –

• Bullitt had planned to transfer its satellite business and 100 employees to a new company owned by creditors but this fell through at the 11^th hour
• All the staff had been laid off
• The founders had paid to keep the service running for 1 month
• All customers were going to be contacted with regard to what was going on with regard to the service continuing
• PWC where appointed as the administrators to wind up 

  Bullitt Group Limited ("BG") and Bullitt Satellite Connect Limited ("BSC"). One interesting thing here is makes you realise (as you will see below) that Bullitt is made up of a number of Ltd businesses with not all going into administration.
  

New Business set up in late 2023 - According to filings at Companies House, Bullitt Group Limited directors Colin Batt, David Floyd and Richard Wharton incorporated new companies including Bullitt Satellite Communications Limited, Bullitt Solutions Limited, Bullitt Services Limited, and RCD 2023 Limited between late November and early December.

We discussed this at length in our February GPS Training Podcast (33 min 45 seconds in) - listen to the podcast

 

We will continue to keep you updated as the story progresses, please feel free to leave a comment below if you know anything different to above and if you can shed any more light on what is going on.

March 2024 - GPS Training Podcast - We discuss Bullitt at length and update everybody with all the info we have to date, you can listen to that online here.

Further Reading

1. Review - Motorola Defy - Satellite Link

2. The FAQ's we get asked about the Motorola Defy - Satellite Link

3. Walk and talk - Motorola Defy - Satellite Link