A Texas company called AST SpaceMobile managed to successfully transmit a 4G LTE signal from space that was picked up by “on a regular basis, off-the-shelf smartphones,” the corporate announced this morning. The satellite AST used, called BlueWalker 3 (BW3), will try a 5G connection for its next major test. The corporate says its recent test was a “world first.”
Testing was conducted in Hawaii on AT&T’s spectrum using Nokia RAN technology, and the signal, which was beamed from AST’s satellite in low Earth orbit, reached speeds of as much as 10.3Mbps. That’s fast enough for some video streaming, general web use, and more abnormal cellular phone usage.
AST’s testing followed a recent April test by the identical company, where it was in a position to route an audio call between a Samsung Galaxy S22 in Texas to an iPhone in Japan via satellite.
The BW3 is an enormous business communication array at 693 square feet — in regards to the size of a two- or three-car garage — and the most important ever deployed in low Earth orbit, says AST’s release. It operates using the identical 3GPP standard present in ground-based cell networks.
The achievement is “a vital step toward AST SpaceMobile’s goal of bringing broadband services to parts of the world where cellular coverage is either unreliable or just doesn’t exist today,” based on AST’s chairman and CEO, Abel Avellan, who said this could allow users to text and call, browse the web, download files, and even stream video using a signal beamed from space.