To “catch” a 5G signal in space, you need a satellite the size of a three-room apartment
A Vodafone engineer named Jose Guevara made history by becoming the first person to receive a space voice call over the 5G Internet. With this call, Vodafone has successfully completed the testing of space calls with satellite developer and manufacturer AST SpaceMobile. Today, some smartphones already offer satellite communications, but only in the form of SMS, without voice communication support.
Guevara, who is based in Spain, received a call from Hawaii and used a regular Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone, the same one that anyone can buy. The call was made via AST SpaceMobile’s BlueWalker 3 test satellite (pictured above). According to Vodafone, it is the largest commercial communications array deployed in low Earth orbit.
BlueWalker 3 has a massive antenna array that stretches over 64 square meters (the area of some three-room apartments in Ukrainian high-rise buildings is smaller), the largest ever deployed in Earth orbit. As soon as he deployed his antenna, the satellite became one of the brightest objects in the night sky.
In parallel, AST Space Mobile also tested mobile Internet over the same infrastructure and apparently broke its previous record. This time, the researchers achieved a download speed of almost 14 Mbps, and Vodafone added that this new technology has the potential to provide mobile Internet even in the most remote regions of the planet.
Commenting on the news, Margherita Della Valle, CEO of Vodafone Group, said the company wants to “close the mobile gap” for millions of people in Europe and Africa.
This test marks a milestone in AST SpaceMobile’s goal of launching five commercial BlueBird satellites, scheduled for Q1 2024. By using satellites in low Earth orbit for this type of connection, the telecommunications company hopes to provide mobile communications-both voice and mobile internet-to specific locations. where the physical telecommunications infrastructure has not been laid or is difficult/expensive due to the landscape.
