Lynk Global the world’s leading satellite-direct-to-standard-phone telecoms company, will fly the world’s first 5G cellular base station in space in a first-of-its-kind demonstration. This test will demonstrate the ability to send a 5G signal from space to standard mobile devices on Earth. The test has been funded by an undisclosed partner.

Charles Miller, CEO and co-founder of Lynk, said “Lynk’s fast development cycle, combined with our unique patented and proven technology to connect satellites in orbit to standard mobile phones on Earth, allows Lynk to quickly build and test the world’s most advanced cellular technologies in space.”

Lynk is the only company in the world to demonstrate satellite-direct-to-standard-mobile-phone technology. Earlier this month, Lynk received the world’s first satellite-direct-to-phone commercial license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Lynk has also patented the ability to connect to existing standard 5G devices on Earth, with no change to the 5G device, in 55 countries. The 5G payload will launch in December 2022 on Lynk’s second commercial satellite.

Dan Dooley, chief commercial officer of Lynk, said, “Lynk is years ahead of everyone else in enabling MNOs to extend their cellular networks to 100% of their geographic territories. We will be years ahead in 5G as well. We are actively testing satellite-direct-to-phone-services in 12 countries on five continents. Recent events have only accelerated Lynk’s progress not only technically as well as commercially with MNO partners.”

Lynk has adopted design and development processes that enable the company to rapidly incorporate new technologies, such as this experimental 5G payload, in addition to the existing GSM and LTE base stations for the MNOs that are under contract. Lynk’s software-designed radios can switch between 2G and 4G for our MNO partners and in the future, will be able to switch to 5G when our MNO partners and other customers prefer that over 4G.