Starlink competition: Eutelsat tests 5G via satellite with smartphones

Commercial solutions for satellite telephony based on the current 5G mobile communications standard with common smartphones are getting closer. Eutelsat announced on Monday that, together with Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer MediaTek and Airbus' Defense and Space division, it had successfully tested a 5G mobile connection via satellite for the first time worldwide. The Franco-British company has thus achieved a stage victory over Elon Musk's US satellite network Starlink: 5G works with standard cell phones, while Starlink has so far required special equipment and satellite dishes for internet connections. Musk's company is also testing satellite telephony with conventional cell phones in the USA, but is obviously not yet as advanced as Eutelsat.

Specifically, the European company has been using the 5G NTN (Non-Terrestial Network) standard via its OneWeb satellites orbiting in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Eutelsat took over the network for broadband communication from space, which was founded in 2012 by industry pioneer Greg Wyler and later went into a tailspin, in autumn 2023. In addition to better coverage when traveling and in remote locations, a 5G NTN should also offer an alternative in the event of a disaster if terrestrial network components are offline due to a power outage or other damage.

Eutelsat is optimistic: according to the company, the tests pave the way for the introduction of the 5G NTN standard, which will lead to "future satellite and terrestrial interoperability within a large ecosystem". This approach will reduce access costs for satellite connections and enable the use of broadband from space for 5G devices around the world. The development of NTNs is also part of the planned "Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security through Satellites" (IRIS2). The plan for this EU program, which is worth around 11 billion euros, envisages launching almost 300 earth satellites into low or medium orbits.

Positions are staked out like in the Wild West

According to Eutelsat, Sharp and Rhode & Schwarz supplied the antenna array and other equipment for the test run. The LEO satellites built by Airbus carry transponders and are based on the concept of "earth-moving beams " as defined in the 3GPP Release 17 specification. During the test, the 5G user terminal successfully established a connection to the 5G Core control unit via the satellite route and exchanged data. With this technology, all compatible satellite constellations could seamlessly complement terrestrial networks in the future, thus realizing "ubiquitous connectivity". At the same time, it opens up new markets "for smartphones, the automotive industry and the Internet of Things".

There is a fierce racefor supremacy in satellite internet. The Kuiper project of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the Canadian company Telesat, as well as the partly state-owned Chinese satellite operator SpaceSail, want to get in on the action. The latter is currently taking advantage of the fact that Starlink has been caught in the middle in a legal dispute between the Brazilian Supreme Court and Musk's short messaging service X. Starlink is currently the world's largest satellite operator with around 7,000 artificial celestial bodies. This number is set to rise to 42,000 by 2030. China wants to launch a similar number of small satellites into LEO in the medium term. Industry experts warn of a Wild West in space, with pioneers currently trying to stake their claims in a largely unregulated manner.

(olb)