Credit: AST SpaceMobile
- AST SpaceMobile and AT&T just made the first satellite call using an unmodified smartphone.
- The call went from Texas to Japan, received by a retail Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra.
- This could allow any smartphone to make/receive calls anywhere in the world.
Satellite phones are nothing new. These big, bulky phones connect directly to a satellite using specialized hardware. Unfortunately, with the way smartphones are designed, it hasn’t been possible to cram all that satellite phone technology into a normal phone.
A company called AST SpaceMobile, however, just proved you don’t need to cram anything into a smartphone for satellite connectivity. The company — in partnership with AT&T, a major investor — just made the first satellite call using off-the-shelf smartphones, specifically the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. AST made the call from Texas to a phone in Japan.