AST SpaceMobile says that the Special Temporary Authority (STA) it has been granted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will enable it to begin testing its five low earth orbit (LEO) BlueBird satellites with unmodified devices in AT&T and Verizon’s low band wireless spectrum.
The announcement offered no details on the precise nature or time of the planned tests.
“The FCC USA regulatory approvals represent a pivotal moment for AST SpaceMobile as we advance toward delivering seamless space-based cellular broadband connectivity,” Vikram Raval, Global Head of Regulatory Affairs of AST SpaceMobile, said in the announcement.
There are two generations of Bluebird Satellites. The Block 1 BlueBirds will offer non-continuous broadband service across the United States and some markets globally. They have almost ubiquitous nationwide coverage from space with over 5,600 coverage cells.
Block 2 BlueBirds will aim to deliver as much as ten times the bandwidth capacity of the first-generation satellites. They are designed to have peak data transmission speeds as fast as 120 Mbps.
The company seems to be making incremental progress.
Last January, it said that it had entered an agreement with Ligado Networks for long term access to as much as 45 MHz of lower mid band spectrum.
In October, the company reported that the first five BlueBird satellites had unfolded their solar panels. This key step, the company said, occurred ahead of schedule. The satellites had launched the satellites in mid-September. The FCC authorization was the next step needed for AST SpaceMobile to test the satellites.
AST SpaceMobile has investments from AT&T, Verizon, Google, Rakuten, American Tower, Cisneros Group, Bell Canada, and Vodafone. It has agreements with more than 45 mobile network operators globally. All told, the agreements cover 2.8 billion subscribers.
The company provided details of its plans and agreements last summer.
The race for delivery of broadband by LEO seems to be heating up. This week, reports say that the Starlink-T-Mobile LEO service has entered the free beta stage, and is offering service to some iPhone users.
