A groundbreaking phone call between Texas and Japan has occurred that might eventually help set the stage for a globally accessible space-based cellular network. AST SpaceMobile — a Texas-based satellite manufacturer — announced on Tuesday that it had successfully routed an audio call between two standard smartphones directly through its BlueWalker 3 (BW3) satellite in low Earth orbit, a breakthrough that might improve global cellular connectivity in distant regions without access to cell towers.
AST SpaceMobile claims that is “the primary time anyone has ever achieved a direct voice connection from space to on a regular basis cellular devices.” The phone call was produced from an unmodified Samsung Galaxy S22 in Midland, Texas, using mobile spectrum from AT&T and connected to an iPhone utilized by Japanese tech giant Rakuten. Engineers from AT&T, Rakuten, and UK-based telecommunications company Vodafone assisted with the test.
The BW3 satellite is powerful enough to select up cellphone signals from over 1,000 miles away
Ordinarily, an on a regular basis smartphone shouldn’t give you the chance to speak directly with satellites in space as they operate using different spectrums, as a substitute requiring phones to hook up with nearby cell towers. AST SpaceMobile got around this a number of ways, equivalent to purposefully designing its network architecture to mirror the 3GPP (third Generation Partnership Project) standard utilized by terrestrial cellular networks — that and the BW3 satellite is an absolute beast: at 693 square feet (just over 64 square meters), it’s the most important industrial communications array ever deployed to low Earth orbit, able to picking up cellphone signals from over 1,000 miles away due to its 100,000 individual antenna elements.
The technical efforts at play here meant that the phones connected to BW3 didn’t need any hardware or software changes — no fancy apps required, just the usual Samsung dialer. The businesses involved didn’t disclose details regarding the performance, but an AT&T spokesperson confirmed to that the initial test call was revamped 2G and that the following testing phases will include LTE, 4G, and 5G.
The principal goal of direct cell-to-satellite communication is to enhance global cellular access in distant regions that lack infrastructure like cell towers. This also includes rural areas across the US that struggle to realize even a 3G wireless connection, let alone 5G. AST SpaceMobile has agreements in place with mobile carrier networks besides AT&T, Rakuten, and Vodafone, equivalent to Bell Canada, Telefónica, and Orange, which, combined, have roughly 2 billion subscribers. We currently don’t have any information regarding how these carriers might include direct satellite connectivity inside their existing services or when such a utility could arrive for general consumers.
Other carriers have made similar partnerships to expand rural broadband access using satellites. Back in 2021, Verizon announced it was working with Amazon so as to add “cellular backhaul solutions” to the e-commerce giant’s Project Kuiper system, which is predicted to start out deployment in 2024. Elsewhere, smartphone services have developed message-based satellite routing solutions like Apple’s Emergency SOS feature for the iPhone 14.