Vodafone to open satellites interoperability lab
Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile plan to open a research hub this summer to test and validate the integration of orbital services with terrestrial cellphone networks.
The facility, to be located at Vodafone’s European innovation center in Málaga, Spain, will focus on the development and testing of open source hardware, software, and silicon that can work interchangeably in both space and ground-based networks to let phone users switch between satellite and 4G/5G services when necessary.
Commercial direct-to-cell satellite services are to be sold by Vodafone in Europe later this year – the first mobile video call using a satellite connection and standard 4G/5G smartphones was tested by Vodafone and AST last month.
Other operators and vendors will be able to trial services through the R&D hub, Vodafone says. We asked if it intends to charge other companies for this privilege and await an answer. Ultimately, Vodafone intends to turn the facility into a fully managed network and service operations center for third-party companies across Europe.
A spokesperson at Vodafone told The Register: “The technology has been demonstrated and it works. However, like terrestrial networks, we expect to improve it over time with periodic enhancements to deliver better performance in terms of coverage, capacity, and throughput. These improvements typically occur through cycles of R&D, much like the progression from 2G to 3G, 4G, and 5G, or through minor enhancements in yearly releases. Each enhancement undergoes validation before being introduced into the commercial network.
“The Málaga Lab will focus on two main areas: collaborating with the University and AST SpaceMobile to further improve software and hardware and ensuring that all changes are thoroughly tested to avoid any disruption to the commercial network.”
The site, which is supported by an initial grant from the Spanish Space Agency, will be equipped with a space-to-land gateway (a satellite dish and ground station) to let Vodafone and other operators test and validate how their services function with AST’s BlueBird satellite constellation before going live with them.
Vodafone says its work at the research hub will build on its own efforts in Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) technology, such as the integration of multi-vendor hardware and software.
Vodafone looks set to be one of the first mobile operators to offer a direct-to-cell capability that works with standard smartphones, along with T-Mobile in the US, which started a public beta of its service using Starlink satellites earlier this month, and One NZ in New Zealand, which is also hooking up with Starlink.
The telcos are essentially treating the space-borne service as a backup for when users are out of range of their home network’s cell towers – similar to international roaming. However, this is likely to apply more in the US, where large areas of the country have no or poor network coverage, unlike in Europe. ®
