AST SpaceMobile, which is building a space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly by everyday smartphones and designed for both commercial and government applications, has announced an agreement to acquire global S-Band spectrum priority rights held under the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
The company notes that its satellites and ASICs were designed with S-Band (2-4GHz) capabilities in mind. The European Space Agency says that this band offers stable and resilient performance with good penetration through atmospheric conditions.
Abel Avellan, Chairman and CEO of AST SpaceMobile, explains: “With these new spectrum priority rights, we will be in a position to bring services in S-Band to targeted markets around the world.”
He adds: “Alongside our existing global 3GPP spectrum strategy and planned L-Band (1-2GHz) spectrum strategy in the US and Canada, we would be capable of expanding subscriber capacity by offering the vast majority of countries around the world the full AST SpaceMobile network capabilities, together with our mobile network operator partners enabling a true broadband experience directly from space to everyday smartphones and with a goal of peak data transmission speeds of up to 120 Mbps.”
AST SpaceMobile says that earlier this week it entered into an agreement to acquire an entity that holds certain S-Band ITU priority rights to mobile satellite services (MSS) frequencies in the range of 1980-2010MHz and 2170-2200MHz, for use in low Earth orbit.
The company says that these spectrum priority rights will provide AST SpaceMobile a path to offer services in these spectrum bands around the world, subject to country-level regulatory approvals, supplementing the company’s core global 3GPP cellular spectrum strategy.
This presumably includes markets covered in these pages, some of which are already being targeted by AST SpaceMobile. Indeed, earlier this year we reported that Indian operator Vodafone Idea and AST SpaceMobile had announced a strategic partnership to expand mobile connectivity across India’s unconnected regions.
In April Zimbabwean mobile operator NetOne reportedly struck a deal with AST SpaceMobile to expand the reach of its 5G services once the satellite network is available in Africa.
In December 2024 meanwhile, AST SpaceMobile signed what was called a definitive ten-year commercial agreement with Vodafone Group to roll out its services in Vodafone’s markets worldwide. For Africa and Asia, that includes the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa, India and Turkey.
