Vodafone and AST Space Mobile form European satellite comms service | Computer Weekly

Barely three months after entering into a 10-year commercial agreement designed to enable users outside traditional cellular coverage to connect to smartphones directly by satellite, Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile are to create a jointly owned European satellite service business to serve mobile network operators (MNOs) in all European markets.

The new SatCo will seek to provide 100% geographic coverage in every part of Europe to give consumers and businesses access to secure space-based cellular broadband connectivity via their MNO, and will exclusively distribute AST SpaceMobile’s satellite services to European MNOs under a single turnkey arrangement.

AST SpaceMobile’s satellites already operate as remote radio heads where the core network capability remains with the MNO. SatCo will build and run a network of ground stations to provide backhaul services from these MNOs across Europe to the satellite network in low Earth orbit (LEO). This, assured the two parties, will be underpinned by a full network management and network operations centre capability, based in Europe, and they offered a further guarantee that SatCo’s solution will fully support European digital sovereignty. SatCo will look to build on this by providing fully sovereign backhaul capabilities under Vodafone co-ownership, with European headquarters and management.

“Vodafone’s space-based mobile broadband will mean our customers can stay connected, wherever they are,” commented Vodafone Group CEO Margherita Della Valle. “Our new satellite company will be able to offer this pioneering technology to other European mobile operators through a turnkey service that combines Vodafone’s leading network and engineering with AST SpaceMobile’s ‘antennas in the sky’.”

Abel Avellan, founder, chairman and CEO of AST SpaceMobile, added: “Together with Vodafone, we are poised to accelerate our commercialisation plans across all of Europe, making true mobile broadband from space a reality.”

Together with Vodafone, we are poised to accelerate our commercialisation plans across all of Europe, making true mobile broadband from space a reality

The formation of the new company builds on a number of key development landmarks by the two partners. At the end of January 2025, in what it called an historic first, Vodafone revealed that it completed “the first-ever space-based video call” using 4G/5G smartphones over an AST SpaceMobile LEO Bluebird satellite built to offer a full mobile broadband experience from an area with no terrestrial mobile coverage.

Vodafone is looking to introduce commercial space-based mobile broadband connectivity across Europe in 2025 and 2026, and has the aim of providing ubiquitous mobile coverage for its 340 million customers in 15 countries and its network partners in 45 more markets.

Going back further, in April 2023, AST SpaceMobile and its partners completed the “first-ever space-based voice call to an unmodified phone”, followed by another landmark with the “first-ever 4G download speed above 10Mbps” in June 2023 and the “first-ever 5G voice call” in September 2023. Ultimately, the company and its partners aim to demonstrate over 20Mbps download speeds to unmodified phones on a 5MHz channel.

On 19 February 2025, Vodafone, AST SpaceMobile and the University of Málaga also launched a new space and land mobile broadband research and validation hub, supported by the Spanish Space Agency. Set to open by summer 2025 at Vodafone’s existing Innovation Centre in Malaga, the hub will develop integrated LEO space-based and land mobile broadband services.