ALEXANDRIA, Va. — There’s a saying that when the elephants get up to dance, it’s time to get off the floor. When those elephants are chip makers and they’re building standardized satellite chipsets, it’s time to pay attention.
Semiconductor giant Qualcomm demonstrated new satellite chipsets for 5G NTN at Mobile World Congress Shanghai in June 2023. (Source: ©2023 GSMA/MWC)
Over the past year, some of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers have announced new chipsets for satellite IoT and direct-to-handset connectivity using 5G non-terrestrial network (NTN) standards. The chipsets are among the first to leverage 3GPP protocols in Release 17, which was the first mobile industry standard designed to include satellite.
Last month Qualcomm revealed two IoT-NTN compatible satellite IoT modem chipsets with a series of demos at MWC Shanghai. In February, MediaTek debuted a commercial 5G IoT-NTN chipset at Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona, along with a mobile phone chip to support two-way communication with satellite networks. Three months earlier, Sony Semiconductors introduced its Release 17-compatible ALT1350 chipset with a commercial launch date scheduled in 2023.
The announcements, coupled with live demonstrations by MediaTek and Qualcomm captured attention across industries. “In Barcelona and Shanghai, these were some of the most visited demonstrations. The interest is very high,” said Goce Talaganov, a Market Segment Manager for cellular device testing at Rohde & Schwarz.
The MediaTek demo in Barcelona featured a WhatsApp video call via satellite using a chip designed to support the 3GPP NTN-NR (New Radio) standard. In Shanghai, Qualcomm, Rohde & Schwarz and three OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) demonstrated a link between IoT user equipment and a GEO/GSO satellite. The tests were in the 2 GHz frequency range, making them compatible with S- and L-band satellite transmissions.
It’s remarkable enough to see chipmakers more involved in satellite communications. But what is essentially driving major players in the mobile industry toward satellite is standardization around 3GPP’s NTN standards. In the case narrowband (NB) use cases, like IoT and SOS messaging, the standard is NB-IoT or IoT-NTN. For broader use cases, 3GPP supports New Radio (NR)-based satellite access technology, which currently supports higher data rate applications, like two-way text and data, in the sub-6 GHz bands. The NR-NTN standard is designed to be forward-compatible and eventually adapt to higher frequency bands used in satellite communications, like Ka.
Standardized vs. Proprietary
Historically, the lack of a standard was one of the key barriers to widespread adoption of satellite within the mobile industry. Satellite technology has often been characterized by low-volume, purpose-built, proprietary solutions. That has typically meant different chipsets for different operators, high-cost production, high-cost services and vendor lock. Standardizing equipment around 5G NTN promises to unleash the economies of scale in the mobile sector, opening the door to higher volume chipset production, more affordable devices and services, and a much larger market of end users.
Just as it took time for the telecommunications industry to accept standardization, the satellite industry will not shift its outlook overnight. However, experts see the long-term trend favoring standardization.
“I have no doubt that that democratization will happen in satellite over time,” said Talaganov. “It’s not about beating your chest that you have the best encryption or the best waveform. It’s about having a standardized ecosystem that can scale according to different requirements over time. I believe for satellite operators, this is tapping a huge, huge market.”
Standardization around 3GPP mobile standards allows satellite service providers to leverage the economies of scale and access a larger market.
Alan Crisp, NSR senior analyst specializing in M2M and IoT via satellite, noted that today, satellite operators and service providers are torn between proprietary solutions and broader standards. This is evidenced in the satellite IoT ecosystem.
Among IoT providers, companies like Thuraya, Totum Labs and hiSky are using proprietary waveforms and protocols. This allows them to optimize certain parameters to accomplish use cases that are not immediately supported by the 3GPP standard, like connectivity beyond line of sight (e.g. indoors, inside shipping containers) or tracking objects on the move.
Sateliot, Ligado and Skylo are among the IoT service providers leveraging Release 17 for satellite constellations in LEO and GEO/GSO. Other companies, like Swarm, Lacuna Space, Omnispace and Wyld Networks use LoRaWan, an open standard recognized by the International Telecommunications Union for ultra-low power, long-range applications in the sub-GHz spectrum. Some support both standards.
“At the moment there still is an issue of how efficient these NTN standards are for satellite, especially when you’re roaming from terrestrial to satellite networks and vice versa,” Crisp explained. “Our view is that the 5G standards will ultimately win out, but there will still be a place for the proprietary standards in agriculture and other more rural areas.”
It is expected that 3GPP will address shortcomings in the current IoT-NTN protocol in future releases, such as improving waveform efficiency and addressing interference issues when switching between terrestrial and satellite networks.
What About Smartphones?
Satellite IoT is progressing steadily, with implications for large manufacturing enterprises, agriculture, mining, distribution and industries requiring asset tracking and control across large distances or remote areas. Within the 3GPP ecosystem, satellite IoT will have near-term implications for smartphone users. IoT chipsets have been designed to be packaged into mobile handsets for emergency messaging and location tracking. They will also enable functionality for connected vehicles.
The next step beyond IoT is NR-NTN. Even as companies like Qualcomm and Media Tek develop 5G chipsets to support higher bandwidth use cases in NR-NTN, the satellite industry is not quite there yet. Currently, no satellite operator supports 3GPP Release 17 standards for NR-NTN for voice and data.
Lynk Global and AST SpaceMobile have demonstrated successful two-way sat-to-cell communication and Globalstar currently provides emergency text messaging via satellite to Apple’s iPhone 14. Neither uses the 5G standard. AST, which recently demonstrated a successful 10 Mbps connection and sat-to-cell voice call with AT&T, has announced plans to begin 5G cellular testing soon.
Talaganov emphasized that satellite operators don’t have to wait for future 3GPP releases to develop NR-NTN-capable assets, though some are. “The standard is there,” he said. “But then other operators…are waiting for new frequencies in the FR3 range—for traditional satellite Ku band to be part of 3GPP to enable their current frequency assets to be used for NTN-NR.”
FR3, the frequency range from 7.125 GHz to 24.25 GHz, includes Ku-band and has attracted attention as a possible additional spectrum for 6G.
Many of the leading satellite operators and a growing number of service providers are working toward supporting the 5G standard and standardized devices. Mobility remains one of the main challenges in NR-NTN, especially in LEO. This is the case with IoT-NTN, where many of the current solutions are for fixed use cases. There are also ongoing challenges related to high path loss, differential delays, doppler shift, propagation delays and atmospheric effects on signal amplitude and phase.
Transforming Gateways and Constellations into 5G Base Stations
According to ABI Research, revenue across the entire NTN mobile segment could hit $18 billion by the start of the next decade. The research firm estimates there will be more than 200 million NTN connections by 2031 as a result of non-terrestrial networks being integrated into 3GPP mobile standards.
Satellite network operators can begin to transform into 5G network operators using a transparent or regenerative payload architecture.
Tapping into this marketplace means different things to different industry players. Oftentimes, satellite 5G refers to some form of direct-to-device (D2D) use case, like one- or two-way text messaging, IoT, connected vehicles, voice or enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB). Some may also use it to refer to satellite backhaul and traffic offloading for terrestrial 5G networks. Generally, the goal of satellite 5G is to have a ubiquitous continuity of 5G basic services across the globe.
The announcements by Qualcomm and MediaTek for cellphone chips are a big step toward extending basic 5G services. Satellite providers are now being asked to respond in kind, by adapting constellations and gateways to look and act more like a 5G base station. As Qualcomm noted in announcing its satellite smartphone chip, Snapdragon Satellite will support non-terrestrial connectivity “as NTN satellite infrastructure and constellations become available.”
Many satellite operators already have the frequency assets to become 5G capable, since Release 17 is supported by S- and L-bands and user equipment is assumed to have GNSS capabilities. An important next step is incorporating a gNodeB into the satellite network architecture, either on the ground or in orbit, essentially allowing a gateway or constellation to function as a radio base station. gNodeB refers to the radio base stations (nodes) in a 5G network that allow mobile phones or other user equipment to connect to the 5G core network using the 5G radio interface. The node can be physical, like a cell tower or virtual, like a software-defined radio.
The most immediate opportunity for operators to transform their satellite network into a 5G network is through a transparent payload architecture, or bent-pipe approach, where each gateway is equipped with a gNodeB to process signals, push them out to the 5G core network and back to the user equipment and vice versa. The next evolution of the satellite 5G network is the regenerative payload, where the gNodeB is incorporated in the satellite or constellation. This will reduce latency significantly, enable a more responsive communication link and represent a truly extraterrestrial 5G network.
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