In a bid to bring coverage to connectivity blackspots, Vodafone has teamed up with AST SpaceMobile to make calls using satellites.
Vodafone has successfully made a mobile video call using satellite technology on an ordinary smartphone in what it describes as a “world first”.
Connecting to a satellite in low-Earth orbit, Vodafone engineer Rowan Chesmer video-called Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone Group CEO, from a remote mountainous area of Wales, where there has never been mobile broadband signal.
Vodafone says that the service, which it hopes to start rolling out in Europe later this year, will offer full mobile broadband connectivity to remote regions, including out at sea, without the need for a special dish, terminal or expensive satellite phone. The direct-to-mobile (or direct-to-cell) service will mirror the experience of existing 4G and 5G networks, it says, enabling customers to use ordinary smartphones to switch between space and ground-based networks.
Della Valle said this cutting-edge satellite technology will now complement the company’s advanced European 5G network.
To mark the milestone, British astronaut Tim Peake joined Della Valle at the telco’s new space-to-land gateway, which receives and channels the signals sent from a user’s smartphone via the Bluebird satellites of Vodafone’s partner, AST SpaceMobile.
“Having spent six months on the International Space Station, I can fully appreciate the value in being able to communicate with family and friends from remote and isolated locations,” Peake said.
Vodafone has been a lead investor in AST SpaceMobile since 2019. The US-headquartered space-tech company has been described as a rival to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Abel Avellan, the founder and CEO of AST, said that the collaboration with Vodafone has resulted in “several world firsts in space-based broadband connectivity”, including the first space-based voice call and the first 5G voice call.
“This latest achievement using our Bluebird satellites takes us one step closer to our mission to eliminate connectivity gaps and make cellular broadband accessible to all.”
Last year, SpaceX partnered with T-Mobile to launch 21 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit, six of which have direct-to-cell capabilities. The space-tech described the satellites as like “a cellphone tower in space”.
However, at the time, Musk said that while it’s a great solution for locations with no connectivity, it’s not a competitive replacement for existing terrestrial cellular networks, having only facilitated text messaging so far. The company plans to test voice, data and IoT services this year.
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