AST SpaceMobile satellite connects AT&T's 5G with Vodafone's

MIDLAND, Texas – AST SpaceMobile, Inc. ("AST SpaceMobile") (NASDAQ: ASTS), the company building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly by standard mobile phones, today announced another unprecedented leap in telecommunications by successfully making the first-ever 5G connection for voice and data between an everyday, unmodified smartphone and a satellite in space.

Company engineers demonstrated space-based 5G connectivity by placing a call from Maui, Hawaii, USA, to a Vodafone engineer in Madrid, Spain, using AT&T spectrum and AST SpaceMobile's BlueWalker 3 test satellite — the largest-ever commercial communications array deployed in low Earth orbit. Fifth-generation or 5G mobile networking is the fastest, most efficient, highest-throughput, lowest-latency, and flexible wireless standard ever released by the 3GPP consortium.

The 5G call was placed on September 8, 2023, from an unmodified Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone located near Hana, HI, in a wireless dead zone. 5G connectivity testing was completed with our partners Vodafone, AT&T and Nokia. In a separate test, the company broke its previous space-based cellular broadband data session record by achieving a download rate of approximately 14 Mbps.

These historic accomplishments follow AST SpaceMobile's April announcement that the company had completed the first-ever space-based voice calls using everyday unmodified smartphones. In June, AST SpaceMobile announced that the satellite reached initial download speeds above 10 Mbps. The company's comprehensive testing program with its partners has continued since June, including additional voice calls, 4G video calls and now 5G cellular broadband connections. These speeds, beyond supporting basic voice and text, also enable browsing the internet, downloading files, using messaging apps, streaming video, and more on everyday smartphones.

Read the full press release here.

AST SpaceMobile