TAMPA, Fla. — Omnispace is investigating how its potential group of more than 600 satellites that orbit close to Earth could assist in linking phones and other equipment subscribed to MTN, Africa’s largest terrestrial mobile network operator.
The firms stated on March 12 that they will use Omispace’s two models in low Earth orbit and the medium Earth orbit satellite acquired 12 years ago from bankrupt satellite services firm ICO to test the network. The network would use S-band spectrum to maintain connectivity for mobile customers when they are not within range of cell towers.
MTN offers voice, data, and other connection services to over 290 million clients in 19 countries in Africa and the Middle East.
The financial terms of their collaboration were not revealed.
Omnispace has declared similar testing agreements with telecommunication companies in India, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and island nations in the South Pacific.
The company also reported last month that it had obtained regulatory permission to provide services throughout Brazil, after gaining market access approvals in undisclosed countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
Last year, Omnispace allied with U.S. geostationary satellite operator Ligado Networks to access its L-band spectrum in the United States and Canada, which like S-band is authorized to provide Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) to ground devices. These plans are separate from Ligado’s efforts to use L-band on the ground for a 5G network plagued by interference concerns.
Omnispace has informed the Federal Communications Commission that it anticipates offering preliminary services in 2026 with 300 satellites in low Earth orbit.
“We have already finished much of the design and validated its viability with vendors,” said Omnispace chief corporate development officer Jay Yass on SpaceNews March 12 via email.
“You will hear more about the status of those activities and the constellation plan later this year.”
Milestone for Direct-to-Device Communication
The FCC is expected vote on a regulatory framework March 14 to allow satellites to use radio waves from terrestrial mobile operators to keep their smartphone users connected.
Guidelines for Supplemental Coverage From Space (SCS) might encourage similar action in other countries, marking an important turning point for constellation developers SpaceX, Lynk Global, and AST SpaceMobile as they secure spectrum partnerships with terrestrial telecommunication companies around the world.
Mindel De La Torre, Omnispace’s chief regulatory and international strategy officer, mentioned she was pleased to see the FCC moving to reclassify SCS to being a secondary service, instead of the initial plans that would have given it a co-primary allocation.
Operating on a secondary basis means SCS MSS operators must immediately stop operations if they cause interference to companies that have a primary allocation, whether they are terrestrial or satellite operators.
“While this may create a level of uncertainty for the SCS operations as they are not operating consistently with global allocations for MSS, this gives assurance to companies like Omnispace, which operate consistently with the global allocations,” she said.
However, De La Torre mentioned that the company is still worried about interference from SpaceX's use of T-Mobile's spectrum for providing direct-to-smartphone services in the US.
“We are still worried that the SpaceX/T-Mobile SCS plan to utilize an MSS uplink as a powerful satellite downlink will create harmful interference to Omnispace’s current and future NGSO systems,” she said, “and have communicated these concerns to the FCC.”
Before joining Omnispace, De La Torre served as head of the FCC’s International Bureau, which supervised space affairs before creating a dedicated Space Bureau last year.
