Cellular coverage has improved over the years as carriers moved from one technology to the next. But even in the 5G era, only 10% of Earth has accessible mobile networks. Instead of building towers with a few miles of range, the future may be in space. International telecom group 3GPP unveiled guidelines for “non-terrestrial” networks earlier this year, and now several companies are racing to deploy rudimentary 5G towers in space.
In April this year, Lynk Global launched its first direct-to-mobile commercial satellite aboard a Falcon 9 rocket (above) and applied to the FCC for permission to operate mobile phone service from space. Another company, AST SpaceMobile, announced just this month that it plans to launch an experimental 5G space tower this fall, and it plans to have a fleet of 20 orbiting in the coming years.
Meanwhile, Starlink is coming at the problem from a different angle. It already has a constellation of satellites for broadband, but they are not designed for direct-to-mobile connectivity. It has asked the FCC to let it operate on the 2GHz band, a system that will utilize technology from the Swarm acquisition. This spectrum is currently licensed to Dish, setting up what could be another contentious legal battle between the companies.
Satellite telephony is nothing new, but the functionality of traditional satellite phones is a far cry from today’s smartphones. These systems rely on geostationary satellites in very high orbits, which results in signal travel times measured in the hundreds of milliseconds — far from real-time. The network proposed by AST SpaceMobile would involve low-Earth orbit satellites at roughly 300 miles (500 kilometers) high. That could allow for 25 milliseconds or less of latency, which is in line with terrestrial networks. And we’ve seen that satellites can provide speedy, low-latency connections — just look at Starlink.
Great news! Our BlueWalker 3 test satellite has arrived in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Teams are now working to prepare the spacecraft for a planned launch in early to mid-September. Read more here: https://t.co/KQF9o1JaAB #ASTSpaceMobile pic.twitter.com/MawbV2rnc9
— AST SpaceMobile (@AST_SpaceMobile) August 9, 2022
IEEE Spectrum notes that it isn’t the space side of the equation that needs the most work — it’s the phone in your pocket. AST plans to use a phased-array antenna capable of projecting a transmission cone focused on the Earth’s surface. A phone with the necessary wireless band support could theoretically receive those signals outdoors, but they lack the power to transmit back up to space. Your phone’s antennas are designed to transmit in all directions in order to talk to one or more towers that are, at most, a few miles away.
We are still in the early days of space-based communication, and the necessary technologies are still developing. The interest in direct-to-mobile satellite 5G could change the game in the future. For now, you’ll have to drop hundreds of dollars on a clunky satellite dish if you want space-based connectivity.
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