Telus and AST SpaceMobile, a company that’s building a space-based cellular broadband network accessible by everyday smartphones, are working together to bring space-based cellular activity to its customers.
As part of the agreement, Telus will invest in ground-based satellite infrastructure and has become an equity shareholder in AST SpaceMobile. Planned for later this year, Telus customers will be able to send texts, make calls and use data in remote locations via satellite connectivity.
AST SpaceMobile is using a Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation and offers the largest commercial phase arrays ever developed.
Bell and TELUS appear on AST SpaceMobile’s global MNO-partner map (direct-to-device satellite), as AST touts “50+” operator partners and “nearly 3B” subscriber reach
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Telus isn’t the only telecom working with AST SpaceMobile, as a Reddit post shared by PlanHub indicates the satellite company is working with Bell, and more than 50 operator partners with a nearly 3 billion subscriber reach.
Announced at the end of last year, Bell will also deploy space-based cellular service to its customers, giving access to its customers to use direct-to-cell 4G voice over LTE (VoLTE) calls, video calls, broadband data connectivity and video streaming using the Bell Fibe TV app over satellite.
Rogers already uses satellite-to-mobile, but it uses SpaceX’s Starlink. Rogers first launched this service in beta, and it now includes satellite connectivity in its 5G+ plans in Atlantic Canada. It’s curious to see whether Telus and/or Bell will do something similar when it launches this technology.
Source: Telus/AST SpaceMobile
