Technology company AST SpaceMobile and telecommunications giant AT&T announced Tuesday (24), first satellite voice call via two ordinary smartphones. An unprecedented feat in cell phone history, it is the starting point for making phone calls from anywhere on the planet, even in the dead zones of towers.
While satellite phone calls are nothing new, they rely on large, unwieldy devices that use different hardware to connect. Besides being incompatible, It is not possible to adapt the technology of existing satellite phones to ordinary mobile phones..
AST circumvented this limitation by leaving the phones as is. but investing in building the world’s first (and only) mobile broadband network. The project involves installing a constellation of SpaceMobile satellites to provide connectivity between traditional smartphones even in areas with no coverage.
How does AST Mobile Broadband work?
The first call between mobile phones via satellite was made from AST’s US headquarters in Midland and Japan via two Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra smartphones using the BlueWalker 3 satellite as an intermediary. The spectrum used, whose frequency bands are not disclosed by AT&T theoretically works on any device that supports LTE (4G).
As for why two Samsung Galaxy S22 models are used instead of the Galaxy S23, which already supports satellite communication with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the explanation is simple. Technology developed by Qualcomm It uses the Iridium satellite network and only works for text messages.
Finally, the answer to the question of whether BlueWalker 3 supports mobile broadband data rates is “yes”. The test showed that it is possible to connect anyone anywhere without towers and without making any changes to your mobile..
Source: Tec Mundo
I’m Ben Stock, a highly experienced and passionate journalist with a career in the news industry spanning more than 10 years. I specialize in writing content for websites, including researching and interviewing sources to produce engaging articles. My current role is as an author at Gadget Onus, where I mainly cover the mobile section.
