{"id":464155,"date":"2022-10-12T11:03:33","date_gmt":"2022-10-12T09:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=464155"},"modified":"2022-10-12T11:04:50","modified_gmt":"2022-10-12T09:04:50","slug":"starlink-rival-testing-5g-cell-service-from-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/464155-starlink-rival-testing-5g-cell-service-from-space.html","title":{"rendered":"Starlink rival testing 5G cell service from space"},"content":{"rendered":"

Satellite telecoms company Lynk Global will launch the world’s first base station in space<\/strong><\/a> to transmit 5G cellular connectivity to standard smartphones on Earth.<\/p>\n

The test will take place in December 2022 and will be carried out using Lynk’s second commercial satellite. The endeavour has received funding from an undisclosed partner.<\/p>\n

The company recently received the first satellite-direct-to-phone commercial licence from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).<\/p>\n

It has also secured a patent on the ability to connect to existing standard 5G devices on Earth in 55 countries.<\/p>\n

Lynk chief commercial officer Dan Dooley said the company was “years ahead” of everyone else in allowing mobile network operators to extend their cellular networks to 100% of their geographic territories.<\/p>\n

“We are actively testing satellite-direct-to-phone-services in 12 countries on five continents,” Dooley said. “We will be years ahead in 5G as well.”<\/p>\n

“Recent events have only accelerated Lynk’s progress not only technically as well as commercially with MNO partners.”<\/p>\n

The “recent events” that Dooley referred to might be Lynk rival Starlink starting to offer cellular connectivity<\/strong><\/a> to T-Mobile subscribers in the US next year.<\/p>\n

However, Starlink is yet to receive approval from the FCC to offer this service.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Lynk’s satellite-to-phone service was already successfully tested across 6,000 devices in five countries last year.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the company’s first commercial satellite was launched on a rideshare mission by SpaceX, the same company behind Starlink.<\/p>\n

Several other satellite and telecoms operators are planning to launch satellite-to-phone connectivity trials in the coming months.<\/p>\n

Vodafone has partnered with AST SpaceMobile to use the company’s satellite-based mobile network for engineering trials.<\/p>\n

Vodafone’s South Africa-based subsidiary, Vodacom, will be given priority access to test the network<\/strong><\/a> in a first phase that includes 49 equatorial countries \u2014 including several in Africa.<\/p>\n

The mobile network operator told MyBroadband the satellite service would complement Vodacom’s terrestrial network by using radio frequency spectrum that is not fully used in rural areas.<\/p>\n

\n

Now read: Starlink shows off airplane Wi-Fi with smooth Netflix and YouTube streaming<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lynk chief commercial officer Dan Dooley said the company was “years ahead” of everyone else in allowing mobile network operators to extend their cellular networks to 100% of their geographic territories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":464169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[68138,81410,563,72032,11375,48987,41,1789],"class_list":["post-464155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-ast-spacemobile","tag-lynk-global","tag-satellite-internet","tag-satellite-phone","tag-spacex","tag-starlink","tag-vodacom","tag-vodafone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464179,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464155\/revisions\/464179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}