ESA and European space companies want to enable 5G via satellites

The European space agency ESA and sixteen European space companies will work together to promote 5G via satellites. Satellites must enable coverage in places where providers with masts cannot offer 5g.

For example, users should be able to set up a 5G connection on mountain tops and in the middle of the sea thanks to satellites from the ESA and the sixteen companies involved. The partnership is called ‘Satellite for 5g’.

The intention is to get a frequency for use of 5g from satellites in the 5g standard. Previous proposals talked about the high frequency of 32GHz. Because 5g will support various technologies on many different frequencies, the ESA and the companies expect the initiative to have a chance of success. If that succeeds and many devices receive support for the satellite version of 5G, coverage via ‘mobile internet’ will be possible in many more places. An obstacle is that communication using satellites is much more expensive than with transmission towers, which means that it cannot be used everywhere and at all times.

If satellite communications become part of 5G, it would be a boost for the space industry. Communication via satellites has been around for much longer, but was never part of a standard equal to that of networks on Earth. Smartphones also do not have a data connection with satellites, although they can almost always determine location via the American GPS and some devices with the European counterpart Galileo.

Telecom industry companies are currently in the process of establishing the first standard for 5G. It seems unlikely that satellite communications will be included. However, the standards for mobile networks get new versions every few years, in which the 3GPP, the organization behind it, adds features.

Looking back: video report about 5g