Overview
- TELUS and AST SpaceMobile confirmed a successful integration test that routed broadband data, voice calls and text messages from ordinary, unmodified phones through AST SpaceMobile’s LEO satellites and TELUS’ network.
- TELUS said it expects to offer the satellite layer to eligible customers within about a year, though the company did not give a firm launch date and framed the timing as an expectation.
- Customers would not need separate satellite handsets because the system uses large satellite antennas and carrier integration to talk directly with standard smartphones.
- The service is pitched as a complement to TELUS’ LTE and 5G networks to reach remote highways, parks, wilderness areas and northern communities and to provide another route to 9‑1‑1 when regular signals are unavailable.
- The announcement sharpened competition in Canada’s satellite‑to‑phone market, where Rogers already links phones via SpaceX’s Starlink and Bell is building ground stations to support AST SpaceMobile, and it produced only modest short‑term moves in AST SpaceMobile’s stock.