Vodafone, in partnership with AST SpaceMobile, has completed the first video call over satellite using a normal 4G/5G smartphone. The call came from a remote location in Wales – which had never had high-speed cell connectivity before – and was between Vodafone engineer Rowan Chesmer and the CEO of Vodafone Group Margherita Della Valle.
This is symbolic, coming almost exactly 40 years after Britain’s first-ever mobile call in January 1985. Technology has progressed a lot since then and AST claims to have the “first and only” mobile broadband network in space that works with regular 4G and 5G smartphones (i.e. without the special satellite connectivity hardware that only some phones have).
Wait, what about the Starlink-powered direct-to-cell service from T-Mobile in the US? That one only carries texts for now, though mobile data is planned as a service in the future.
AST SpaceMobile is based in Texas and currently has five satellites in orbit, they are BlueBird 1 through 5. These satellites connect to Vodafone ground stations to offer access to Vodafone’s network and the Internet at large. You can see one such station in the video below – and, apparently, one such station is all it takes to cover all of the UK.
It’s not just a video call, Vodafone and AST are claiming several achievements. Abel Avellan, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of AST SpaceMobile, said: “This historic milestone marks another significant step forward in our partnership with Vodafone, a long-time investor in AST SpaceMobile and a key technology partner. Together, we have achieved several world firsts in space-based broadband connectivity, including the first-ever space-based voice call, the first-ever 4G download speed above 10 Mbps, and the first-ever 5G voice call. This latest achievement using our BlueBird satellites, takes us one step closer to our mission to eliminate connectivity gaps and make cellular broadband accessible to all.”
The satellites are actually capable of peak transmission speeds of up to 120Mbps. The goal is to plug any gaps in coverage in remote rural areas and “vast stretches of surrounding sea”.
Vodafone will be carrying out further tests this spring. The plan is to start rolling out the satellite-based direct-to-phone broadband service to users in Europe later this year and throughout 2026.
AST and Vodafone are closely connected, by the way, the carrier became the lead investor in AST SpaceMobile in 2019. But Vodafone isn’t the only carrier working with AST – the company has partnered with AT&T and Verizon in the US, Bell in Canada and Rakuten in Japan.
You can watch the first space-based video call made with a normal cellphone below. It also shows the ground station mentioned above and goes into a bit more detail on how this system works.
