AT&T, the US carrier, has completed what it calls the first call handoff between its cellular network and the satellite network of AST SpaceMobile, the Texas-based direct-to-device satellite operator, according to Light Reading, which reported the test on 4 November 2026. In the same report, Rakuten Mobile, AST SpaceMobile’s partner operator in Japan, said it is aiming for a commercial direct-to-device (D2D) launch “in the near future” but gave no date.
Key facts
- Light Reading reported that the AT&T test used Ericsson radio and core technology, plus automation for faster handoff, on the cellular side, and Nokia radio access technology and mobility software inside AST SpaceMobile’s satellite network.
- AT&T described the handoff as a milestone and said the next step is a beta phase before commercial service, without naming a timeframe.
- AST SpaceMobile has 13 satellites in orbit and expects 45 — the number it says is needed for continuous US coverage — in early 2027, Light Reading reported.
- Starlink says it has more than 650 satellite-to-mobile satellites in low Earth orbit, reachable through operator partnerships on six continents and potentially covering more than 1.7 billion people, according to Telecom Lead.
- Citing Ookla, Telecom Lead reported Starlink holds 59 mobile-operator partnerships against 28 for AST SpaceMobile.
Why it matters
The capability being demonstrated is handover: keeping a live call alive as a phone moves out of tower range and onto a satellite. Light Reading reported that existing D2D offerings such as Starlink do not yet have that capability, so a call drops at the edge of cellular coverage and a new connection has to be established with a satellite. That is the technical gap AST SpaceMobile is trying to turn into a commercial advantage, the outlet said.
What the test showed — and what it did not
Brian Walsh, principal product development engineering at AT&T, told the outlet that handing a call between towers is like a driver changing lanes on a highway, whereas handing it to a satellite is “like going from the highway to a moving plane.” AT&T said it sees satellite as complementary to its fibre and wireless footprint, extending coverage into gaps without dropped calls.
Rakuten’s limits are more concrete. Speaking at the Mobile Network Innovation Summit virtual event on non-terrestrial networks last week, Hyungmin Ha, vice director for advanced technology engineering at Rakuten, said the carrier does not have many satellites available yet and gets only four to six minutes of connectivity as a satellite passes overhead — not enough to test a continuous video call, Light Reading reported. Ha called the AST relationship a “strategic partnership based on shared investment and common vision” rather than a vendor deal, and said integration between satellite and ground network, not the satellite itself, is the real challenge.
Read together, the two accounts point at the same constraint, and it is not the handover software. Rakuten’s minutes-long passes are what AST’s current fleet can sustain, and Light Reading cautioned that repeated delays leave room for Starlink, Amazon Leo and others to close the distance. AT&T’s own schedule shows that slippage: the outlet noted the carrier had said in January that beta service would start in the first half of this year, and the company now puts beta next with no date attached. On what both reports contain, AST’s advantage is in integration and mobility software while Starlink’s is in sheer fleet size — and satellites are the slower of the two to build.
How Starlink’s approach differs
Telecom Lead, drawing on an Ookla report on the D2D market, described Starlink’s current architecture as turning satellites into mobile towers in space. Unlike Starlink’s satellite internet service, which needs a dish on the ground, D2D talks to existing LTE smartphones using spectrum supplied by the mobile operator, with Starlink plugging into that operator much like a roaming partner.
SpaceX says the next-generation Starlink Mobile V2 system will offer around 20 times the throughput of the first generation and ultimately support full 5G, the report said. The silicon for that step is already settled: SpaceX has made its chipset choice for Starlink Mobile 5G.
Light Reading also reported that SpaceX intends to compete with US carriers rather than only supply them, through the hybrid satellite and terrestrial network SpaceX is building — a plan whose emergence has coincided with operators including Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile having pushed back publicly on Starlink Mobile. AST, by contrast, positions itself as infrastructure sitting behind the operator rather than a consumer satellite brand, Telecom Lead said.
Partnerships, spectrum and who gets covered
Telecom Lead reported that AST received authorisation in 2026 to provide supplemental satellite coverage using low-band spectrum associated with AT&T, Verizon and FirstNet, under the US Supplemental Coverage from Space framework, which lets satellite providers transmit on spectrum held by partner operators. It also signed a commercial agreement with TELUS in Canada in March 2026, under which TELUS agreed to invest in ground-based satellite infrastructure and become an AST shareholder, and has a strategic arrangement with Vodafone Idea in India covering all 22 licensed service areas, subject to Indian regulation.
The two sources differ on AST’s partner count: the Ookla figure cited by Telecom Lead is 28 mobile-operator partnerships, while the same article says AST’s partnership network now covers nearly 60 operators representing more than 3 billion subscribers — a gap wide enough to matter, since partner count is the main proxy for how many subscribers either company can reach. The same lists also separate the two geographically: Telecom Lead’s roster of Starlink operator partners includes Airtel Africa and MTN, while its list of AST partners names no African operator, so on the agreements disclosed so far D2D reaches African subscribers through Starlink and not through AST. Telecom Lead also named Elveo Mobile as a newer entrant that it says will stop D2D becoming a two-company market.
Frequently Asked Questions
How reliable is Starlink’s existing direct-to-device texting today?
Ookla’s RootMetrics tested T-Mobile’s Starlink-powered service in rural New York and found that 143 of 238 text-message attempts went through, a success rate of about 60 percent, according to Telecom Lead’s summary of the report. Successful message exchanges took an average of 1 minute 17 seconds, ranging from one second to five minutes.
How many people are actually using direct-to-device satellite service?
Adoption is still very small. Telecom Lead, citing Ookla, reported that only 0.46 percent of Ookla Speedtest users in the United States registered a direct-to-device satellite connection in March 2026, with Chile the highest of the measured markets at 1.26 percent. Global D2D connections grew 24.5 percent between July 2025 and March 2026.
Did AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon not just form a satellite joint venture together?
Yes. Telecom Lead reported that on October 1, 2026 the three US carriers announced a joint venture to expand satellite-enabled mobile coverage in underserved areas by pooling limited spectrum resources. The report said their existing satellite partnerships, including AT&T’s with AST SpaceMobile and T-Mobile’s with Starlink, continue alongside it.
When will Starlink’s next-generation direct-to-device satellites launch?
Light Reading reported that SpaceX plans to begin launching its next-generation direct-to-device satellites next year, and that those satellites will also include non-terrestrial network integration. Commercial services from that generation are slated for early 2028, according to the same report.
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