Wow! Forget iPhone 14, Connect Your Phone Directly to Satellite!

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Direct-to-satellite mobile-phone service is poised for another try and making it possible is a spacecraft the size of a small apartment. And it is signaling the return of an elusive dream for the wireless industry: service that works through satellites in orbit.

AST SpaceMobile Inc.'s BlueWalker 3, a flat waffle of a spacecraft, successfully deployed on Nov. 10, unfolding to its 693-square-foot expanse, the company said Monday. The craft is a test version for AST SpaceMobile's planned 168-satellite constellation to offer wireless service around the world.

“Every person should have the right to access cellular broadband, regardless of where they live or work,'' Abel Avellan, chief executive officer of AST SpaceMobile, said in a news release. “Our goal is to close the connectivity gaps that negatively impact billions of lives around the world.” AST SpaceMobile shares jumped after the announcement before reversing gains, falling 2.1% at 11:29 a.m. in New York.

AST SpaceMobile partners include AT&T Inc., which sees the possibility of a simple way to connect customers in remote locales that lack cell coverage.

“We're building a suite of services that look exactly like wireless services coming off a terrestrial network, only it's service from the satellites,” AT&T Chief Executive Officer John Stankey said in an interview with Bloomberg News before the satellite unfolded. “You don't want to change anything about the phone. You want it to operate the same way.''

Direct-to-satellite phone service has been a mostly unfulfilled promise dating back to the 1990s. Now carriers such as AT&T and T-Mobile US Inc., which is teaming up with Elon Musk's Space Exploration  Technologies Corp., are about to give it another go.  

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