Forbes has declared that 2024 will be the ‘Year of Low Earth Orbit satellite services’ and expects the likes of Elon Musk’s Starlink to make significant inroads but with competition from other players. That competition could make the LEO segment a “crowded place”. February will see Mobile World Congress take place in Barcelona where satellite-based […]

The US Patent Office has granted a Patent covering ‘SATCOM GSM Solution Directly Communicate With GSM Phones’. The Patent was granted on November 14th 2023 to three inventors – Zhi Zhong Yu or Reading UK, Frederico Pedro Fawzi of Midland, Texas and Abel Avelian of Coral Gables, Florida. The Continuation Patent is assigned to AST […]

Texas-based AST SpaceMobile, which wants to provide a global satellite-to-smartphone services, has received some major investments from major telcos and Google. But there’s also bad news. The cash, totalling some $263 million (€241.4m), comes from AT&T, Vodafone and Google. The finance, according to consultant Dr Tim Farrar (of TMF Association) suggests that the extra cash […]

Texas-based AST SpaceMobile, which says it building the first and only global cellular broadband network in space to operate directly with standard, unmodified mobile devices based on our extensive IP and patent portfolio, has explained how its much-needed financing is shaping up. AST has already launched the massive ‘BlueWalker 3’ satellite. Each satellite comprises flat […]

Space-based cellular broadband network operator AST SpaceMobile is planning to launch its satellite to smartphone service in Q1 2024. It revealed the plan as it provided its business update for the third quarter ended September 30th, 2023. “The manufacturing of our first five commercial satellites is at full speed at our Texas facilities, and we […]

SpaceX’s Starlink broadband-by-satellite service has established ‘direct.starlink.com’ for its Direct-to-Cell service promising “seamless access to text, voice, and data for LTE phones across the globe”. The new service will be available from 2024/2025 (depending on its service partners). Those initial reciprocal cellular partners are named as: T-Mobile, Canada’s Rogers; Australia’s Optus; New Zealand’s One NZ, […]

AST SpaceMobile, a company building space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly by standard mobile phones, has announced another unprecedented leap in telecommunications by successfully making the first-ever 5G connection for voice and data between an everyday, unmodified smartphone and a satellite in space. Company engineers demonstrated space-based 5G connectivity by placing a call from Maui, […]

AST SpaceMobile has secured a financing package sufficient to launch its first five direct-to-cellular satellites. The fresh money, worth $100 million (€91.9m), comes on top of other recent financial input into the business. The cash comes from Atlas Credit Partners (ACP). The investment builds upon AST’s $800 million existing capital base. The ACP credit facility […]

AST SpaceMobile is building what it claims will be the “first and only” space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly by standard smart phones. “AST SpaceMobile continues to make history. This quarter we achieved space-based 4G LTE cellular broadband capabilities to everyday smartphones, reaching speeds above 10 Mbps during BlueWalker 3 testing alongside AT&T, Vodafone and […]

The BlueWalker 3 low Earth orbit satellite, in test transmissions, communicated with everyday smartphones reaching initial download speeds above 10 Mbps during Hawaii testing. AST SpaceMobile, the company building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly by standard mobile phones, announced it has achieved repeated successful download speeds above 10 Mbps during […]