2021-10-01

Lynk Proves Direct Two-way Satellite-to-Mobile-Phone Connectivity

Source: Lynk
Curated by: Gert Jan Wolf - Editor-in Chief for The Critical Communications Review

Lynk Global, Inc. (Lynk), the world's leading cell-tower-in-space connectivity provider, today announced it has registered hundreds of unmodified mobile phones to its 5th cell-tower-in-space in three different countries (UK, US and Bahamas). This critical milestone conclusively proves Lynk’s proprietary core satellite technology works with ordinary mobile phones on Earth, enabling broadband, voice and text messaging — from everywhere — with the phone in your pocket.

Lynk’s 5th satellite (named “Shannon”) launched on June 30, 2021 has connected with, and registered, hundreds of mobile phones in initial tests, even in Virginia where Lynk connected in spite of the “noise” created by millions of mobile phones. Lynk has successfully repeated the tests in the United Kingdom, with testing permission from Ofcom, and in the Bahamas with the support of mobile network operator (MNO) partner Aliv. This proves that Lynk has solved the last major technology barrier to connecting everybody, everywhere with a standard mobile phone. Lynk is the world’s only independently certified provider of cell-tower-in-space connectivity.

“Lynk has provided independent testing data that proves they are connecting existing Aliv devices that roam onto the Lynk system on areas outside the Aliv coverage footprint in the Bahamas” said Dr. Stephen Curran, Aliv’s CTO. “The testing has proven the technology’s ability to simultaneously register and authenticate mobile devices. Lynk will provide a critical maritime communication service for our users. The Caribbean is also known for extreme weather events, and for earthquakes. Lynk will assist Aliv in providing emergency communications back-up when the network experiences major issues, and our sites are down.”

“Six years ago, the entire world thought it was impossible for a satellite to connect two-ways to existing mobile phones in use today,” says Charles Miller, Lynk’s CEO and cofounder. “Lynk has now done the impossible. We recently announced the first operators to sign up for our Flagship Carrier Program, Aliv in the Bahamas and Telecel Centrafique in the Central African Republic. These and others will launch commercial services in their countries in July 2022, beginning our journey to serve the unconnected around the world.”

"Lynk has solved the ‘Uplink Challenge’” explained Lynk CTO and cofounder, Tyghe Speidel. “Our 5th satellite has successfully completed it’s commissioning tests which includes our antenna and core mobile processing tests demonstrating the ability to receive and process signals from terrestrial subscriber phones on Earth that are out of terrestrial coverage. This is especially tough because of the noise from millions of other phones communicating terrestrially in the same mobile operator spectrum at the same time in our spot beam. We have repeatedly demonstrated the intricate two-way signaling required for a phone to connect to our cell tower in space, involving multiple instances of uplink and downlink messages, including a device request for channel access, and then the corresponding authentication and location update procedures. To date, we've done this with hundreds of phones in the UK, the Bahamas, and the US. This has never been proven before with a satellite cell tower and Lynk has done it. As part of the testing, we have also proven our signaling link budget (the signal power analysis) to close the link with existing mobile phones, as well as proven our ability to not interfere with existing terrestrial mobile operations while operating in the same bands.”