Vodafone and ASTS want to steal Starlink's thunder in Europe
To this end, the two companies are setting up a joint venture to supplement European mobile networks with satellite services.
The British company Vodafone Group Plc and the Texan satellite operator AST SpaceMobile want to establish a joint European satellite provider and offer its services to European mobile network operators (MNOs). European MNOs could then book satellite and network capacities from ASTS and Vodafone via the company called SatCo. In order to supply their own customers via satellite, i.e. to cover all unserved areas, at least under the open sky, in one fell swoop.
ASTS and Vodafone are thus trying to occupy a market at an early stage and steal a march on competitors such as Starlink in Europe. So far, radio regulation for the EU is still pending (see section "Extended radio regulation in the distant future") and ASTS only has five satellites in orbit.
100 percent coverage in Europe
According to ASTS and Vodafone, SatCo is aiming for "100% geographic coverage across Europe" to give consumers and businesses access to "secure space-based cellular broadband through their mobile operator".
SatCo wants to offer European network operators "turnkey" services. To this end, "a network of ground stations" is to be set up to provide backhaul services. Vodafone will be responsible for network management.
Vodafone already has a stake in the satellite operator ASTS, as do Google and several other companies. In the USA, however, ASTS has independently concluded contracts with the local mobile network operators AT&T and Verizon.
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In technical terms, the BlueBird satellites from ASTS are considered advanced; they are suitable for both 4G and modern 5G communication and deliver peak data rates of 120 Mbit/s thanks to their huge antennas (223 square meters), among other things, according to Vodafone. Vodafone and ASTS recently demonstrated the first satellite-based video call with commercially available smartphones on this basis.
The service offering for Europe is likely to have been prepared well in advance. This is indicated by the satellite orbits of the first five BlueBirds, which fly over Europe one after the other and with a slight offset. The satellite orbits can be displayed in real time on a world map by the web service isstracker.pl, for example.
Starlink, on the other hand, is by far the leader in terms of the number of satellites in orbit (a total of 7052 functional satellites, although only some of these are used to supply smartphones). The company has also already concluded contracts with several mobile network operators worldwide to provide their customers with mobile services from space. So far, however, these do not include any European network operators. Notable customers include T-Mobile USA (a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom), Telstra in Australia, Rogers in Canada and SALT in Switzerland. Starlink has published the current list of its global partners on its website in the "Global partners" section.
The DTC satellites set up by Starlink to date specifically for smartphone coverage are based on a server-side modified LTE implementation. The peak data rates are either 4.4 Mbit/s or 18.3 Mbit/s. The peak data rates are rarely achieved in everyday use. However, the throughput is still sufficient for telephony and text messaging. Further details on Starlink and ASTS technology can be found in the c't article Flying spot removers - New LEO satellites from Almagest, AST, SpaceSail and Starlink.
[Update]: 03.03.2025, 17:52, Starlink throughput specified
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