Bridging the Horizon: How Mobile and Satellite Convergence Will Create Truly Global Connectivity

We are experiencing a satellite revolution. Since the turn of the century, the number of satellites in orbit has risen from around 8,770 in 2000 to over 28,000 in 2024. As technological advancements and reduced production costs have made the technology more accessible, we are now seeing new services, solutions and partnerships emerge as diverse industry sectors consider the value.

The mobile industry is better placed than most to benefit from the satellite boom, which will be pivotal to building ubiquitous connectivity. Satellites are viewed as a pragmatic solution to extending SMS, voice calls and internet access to remote communities which lack network coverage, while also enabling connectivity in difficult-to-reach areas, such as at sea to support maritime navigation. To this end, we’ve seen over 100 partnerships between operators and satellite companies, collectively covering a mobile subscriber base of around 6 billion people – equivalent to 70 percent of the global market.

But network extensions are just one opportunity made possible by the convergence of mobile and satellite, which will unlock exciting new use cases for our mobile phones and billions of connected IoT devices.

The Direct-to-Device Story

One of the most interesting trends driving satellite momentum is direct-to-device (D2D) connectivity, which will have far-reaching consequences both for consumers and industry. Integrating satellite capabilities into our devices will empower communities and emergency services located in unconnected areas to better respond to natural disasters, weather emergencies and other potential crises, mitigating the impact of longstanding issues like the Coverage Gap – which still affects around 400 million people globally. Meanwhile, we’ll also see operators bring new and improved services to market, including expanded roaming packages that offer non-terrestrial network (NTN) services in areas with poor coverage.

Currently, around half of the live or planned services from telcos involve D2D capabilities, while the remaining half provide backhaul to mobile base stations. The integration of NTN compatibility with 3GPP standards, with Release 17 and 18, has fundamentally made D2D scalable. This opens up a wide, addressable base of smartphones and other devices — including IoT sensors and modules — capable of tapping into services and leveraging standardized devices.

A host of companies are positioning themselves to meet this demand, by choosing different strategies to connect unmodified terminals such as Apple, AST SpaceMobile, Lynk, and Starlink. Where 3GPP NTN solutions are concerned, we’ve just seen news of the Google Pixel 9 smartphone series using Skylo's NTN connectivity to support emergency communications when cellular or Wi-Fi networks are unavailable. The Pixel 9 is the first Android device to support this feature, while Apple announced similar services starting with iPhone 14 in 2022.

In a major development, SpaceX became the first satellite operator to receive clearance from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in November, in a move that will eventually provide D2D satellite coverage to T-Mobile customers in ‘dead zones’ across the U.S. via Starlink. The FCC ruling comes with plenty of conditions, and we’ll likely see a phased implementation in the roll-out of services, starting with support for SMS, followed by voice and data connectivity as satellite capacity increases.

While clearly a positive development for D2D, ubiquitous satellite connectivity will not be achieved in the near-term – even in the U.S. government policy and an enabling regulatory landscape will be critical here; early moves in countries including Argentina, Brazil, and India have been positive, and replicating similar developments globally will be the key to achieving truly global connectivity – particularly in areas where satellite connectivity has scope to be most impactful, such as across Sub-Saharan Africa where the coverage gap is most severe.

Don’t Underestimate the IoT Opportunity

Amid the flurry of activity to service smartphones with messaging and small data for rural connectivity and roaming, it is easy to overlook the substantial go-to-market route via IoT devices – this really is the big opportunity.

NTN will complement terrestrial networks (TNs), providing the continuous connectivity on which a large number of low data IoT use cases rely. For example, there is huge potential for satellite IoT to monitor soil and crop conditions to enable precision agriculture, machinery or energy facilities located in difficult-to-reach areas, or ocean conditions and marine life through deep sea buoys in the middle of our oceans.

GSMA Intelligence data indicates that 11 percent of satellite-enabled services already cover IoT devices or modules, such as weather sensors or agricultural drones, and this will only rise once the technical foundations are in place. Satellite owners, such as Orbcomm and Starlink, and NTN service providers like Skylo, are all aiming to increase service coverage for IoT devices and modules —— and for good reason. Of the 38 billion IoT devices expected to be operable by 2030, 2 billion to 3 billion (10 to 15 percent) will be addressable by satellite. This represents a potential revenue uplift of $10 billion per year, approximately 25 percent of the current IoT revenues from connectivity. Further expansion into the IoT sector, through continued innovation and strategic partnerships, will be critical to realizing the benefits for end users, organizations and service providers.

The Critical Role of Partnerships

While the positive moves and strategic partnerships maintain momentum, many technical questions and hurdles remain. Hence, there is a clear need to work together to ensure proper interworking between TNs and NTNs. The GSMA plays a pivotal role in aligning the mobile industry behind standardized approaches to technology deployment, regulation and interoperability, while also working with partners to drive cross-industry collaboration, knowledge sharing and advancements in NTN and mobile network convergence.

Partnerships between GSMA Foundry and the European Space Agency (ESA) have led to the launch of several industry challenges, inviting organizations to answer the call for novel solutions and guidelines to leverage the potential of seamless TN and NTNs. To assist our initiatives, GSMA members now have access to ESA’s 5G/6G Hub in the U.K., a hybrid 5G-Satcoms hub where cutting-edge research intersects with advanced demonstrations and applications. This hub supports various network designs and includes dynamic, multi-orbit satellite coordination capabilities, via Geostationary Orbit (GEO) and Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite links, alongside a satellite connectivity simulator.

In addition, the GSMA NTN Community was created, focused on the integration of satellite communications with 5G and future networks, to accelerate convergence, interworking and handover. The group brings together experts, practitioners and other experts from various fields related to TN and NTNs, with the objective of sharing experiences from pre-commercial trials and service launches, achievements to date and lessons learned.

The Future is Bright for NTN

Initial market developments paint a promising picture for the future of satellite connectivity, but important technical considerations must be addressed to bring capabilities beyond support for emergency communications. Areas requiring investigation include terminal test cases, user equipment profiling, user-network interface and network-to-network interface interworking, handovers and switching, charging models and consequent roaming models, and the co-existence of TN and NTN.

Collaborative efforts spearheaded by GSMA working groups and through partnerships with organizations, such as the GSOA and MSSA, are playing an important role in addressing many of these technical challenges. But the industry cannot go at it alone, and government and regulatory support will be crucial in enabling industry to overcome many of these barriers to deliver global connectivity for the benefit of both society and industry. VS

Barbara Pareglio is the Senior Technical Director of Smart Mobility, at the GSMA