AST SpaceMobile — a cellular satellite company backed by AT&T — has placed a satellite call over 5G, marking the “first ever” 5G connection between an unmodified smartphone and a satellite in space.
To conduct the test, AST SpaceMobile used a Galaxy S22. It made the decision on September eighth, 2023, from a wireless dead zone in Maui, Hawaii, with its recipient positioned in Madrid, Spain. AST SpaceMobile got the cell signal to its destination by leveraging its low Earth orbit test satellite, called BlueWalker 3 (BW3), and AT&T’s 5G spectrum. Vodafone, Nokia, and AT&T all validated the decision.
There have been a number of tests leading as much as this latest milestone. In April, SpaceMobile routed its first space-based phone call on AT&T’s 2G network. It later sent a 4G LTE signal from space that an strange phone managed to select up, while also touting 10Mbps download speeds. Nonetheless, AST SpaceMobile says it has since broken that download speed record by achieving a rate of around 14Mbps in a separate test.
“Once more, we’ve got achieved a major technological advancement that represents a paradigm shift in access to information,” Abel Avellan, the CEO of AST SpaceMobile, says in an announcement. “Because the launch of BW3, we’ve got achieved full compatibility with phones made by all major manufacturers and support for 2G, 4G LTE, and now 5G.”