Texas-based start-up AST SpaceMobile has been building the first space-based cellular broadband network designed to be accessible by standard smartphones in a bid to provide consistent coverage everywhere on the planet, including at sea and in flight.

Earlier this month, the firm successfully tested the technology by placing a 5G phone call from Hawaii in the US to a Vodafone engineer in Madrid, Spain, using AT&T spectrum and AST SpaceMobile’s BlueWalker 3 test satellite.

The call was placed on September 8 from an unmodified Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone located near Hana, Hawaii, in a wireless dead zone.

In a separate test, the company broke its previous space-based cellular broadband data session record by achieving a download rate of approximately 14mbps.

In June, AST SpaceMobile announced that its satellite had reached initial download speeds above 10mbps. Since then, testing of the new technology has continued, including additional voice calls...