An AT&T-backed cellular satellite company sent a 4G LTE signal from space

A Texas firm known as AST SpaceMobile managed to efficiently transmit a 4G LTE sign from house that was picked up by “on a regular basis, off-the-shelf smartphones,” the corporate introduced this morning. The satellite tv for pc AST used, known as BlueWalker 3 (BW3), will strive a 5G connection for its subsequent main take a look at. The corporate says its current take a look at was a “world first.”

Testing was carried out in Hawaii on AT&T’s spectrum utilizing Nokia RAN know-how, and the sign, which was beamed from AST’s satellite tv for pc in low Earth orbit, reached speeds of as much as 10.3Mbps. That’s quick sufficient for some video streaming, basic web use, and extra unusual mobile phone utilization.

AST’s testing adopted a current April take a look at by the identical firm, the place it was ready to route an audio name between a Samsung Galaxy S22 in Texas to an iPhone in Japan through satellite tv for pc.

The BW3 is a large industrial communication array at 693 sq. ft — in regards to the dimension of a two- or three-car storage — and the biggest ever deployed in low Earth orbit, says AST’s launch. It operates utilizing the identical 3GPP commonplace present in ground-based cell networks.

The achievement is “an essential step towards AST SpaceMobile’s aim of bringing broadband providers to elements of the world the place mobile protection is both unreliable or just doesn’t exist at this time,” in response to AST’s chairman and CEO, Abel Avellan, who stated this could enable customers to textual content and name, browse the web, obtain recordsdata, and even stream video utilizing a sign beamed from house.