History made: First voice call via satellite using a normal phone just happened

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.

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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.

Author: C. Scott Brown. [Source Link (*), Android Authority]

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