In a society where everyone and everything is increasingly dependent on staying connected, convenient, and always-on, telecommunications are essential. However, despite the coming realization of autonomous mobility with automobiles, ships, drones and other vehicles, many areas are still without ground-based mobile network coverage and require separate devices and accounts to connect to non-terrestrial networks.
Through the new collaboration, SoftBank and Intelsat plan to jointly develop a hybrid communication solution that allows users to stay connected via available networks, whether terrestrial or satellite, anywhere in the world with the convenience of one device and one account. The solution will build on the same standard architectures, interfaces and processes that enable roaming of devices between terrestrial cellular networks today and will help make the commercial adoption of mobility solutions based on new 3GPP 5G standards for non-terrestrial networks a reality much sooner.
One of the key goals of the collaboration is to develop a universal device that will always stay connected regardless of where in the world it goes. For example, a future connected vehicle equipped with such a device will be able to seamlessly switch to a non-terrestrial satellite communication network when outside of terrestrial mobile network coverage. The targeted solution is expected to have wide commercial applicability, including in land mobile, maritime, and disaster response and recovery.
Design, development, field testing and commercialization of new hybrid network products between Intelsat and SoftBank will be conducted in phases, aligned with the development of the new 3GPP 5G non-terrestrial network standards. The resulting hybrid solutions will allow for existing satellite terminals to be used in the near term and newer 5G-based terminals as they become available.
“Intelsat and SoftBank share a pioneering vision of Ubiquitous Networking and seamless interoperability between satellite and terrestrial networks,” said Bruno Fromont, Intelsat Chief Technology Officer. “Until now, the challenge was aligning standards that allowed the two different networks to connect. With recent progress on 5G-based standardization of non-terrestrial networks led by Intelsat at 3GPP and this strategic collaboration with SoftBank, we are ideally positioned to accelerate the design and practical implementation of commercial hybrid services that will allow devices to freely roam between satellite and terrestrial networks.”
Hideyuki Tsukuda, Executive Vice President and CTO of SoftBank said, "By using technology that switches between terrestrial mobile networks and satellite communication networks through roaming, we can integrate the two previously separate networks and utilize satellite communication as an extension of mobile communication. Through this joint research and development, SoftBank and Intelsat will aim to build a Ubiquitous Network where people and things around the world can be connected to communication anytime, anywhere."
About Intelsat
Intelsat’s global team of professionals is focused on providing seamless and secure, satellite-based communications to government, NGO and commercial customers through the company’s next-generation worldwide network and managed services. Bridging the digital divide by operating one of the world’s largest and most advanced satellite fleet and connectivity infrastructures, Intelsat enables people and their tools to speak over oceans, see across continents and listen through the skies to communicate, cooperate and coexist. Since its founding six decades ago, the company has been synonymous with satellite-industry “firsts” in service to its customers and the planet. Leaning on a legacy of innovation and focusing on addressing a new generation of challenges Intelsat team members now have their sights on the “next firsts” in space as they disrupt the field and lead in the digital transformation of the industry.
About SoftBank Corp.
Guided by the SoftBank Group’s corporate philosophy, “Information Revolution – Happiness for everyone,” SoftBank Corp. (TOKYO: 9434) operates telecommunications and IT businesses in Japan and globally. In the fiscal year ended March 2024, SoftBank Corp. registered 6,084.0 billion yen of revenue, 876.1 billion yen of operating income and 489.1 billion yen of net income. SoftBank Corp. has 40 million mobile subscribers in Japan, and through its group companies, 63 million smartphone payment (PayPay) users, 85 million online media (Yahoo! JAPAN) users and 97 million communication app (LINE) users (as of May 9, 2024). Building on its strong business foundation, SoftBank Corp. is expanding into non-telecom fields in line with its “Beyond Carrier” growth strategy while further growing its telecom business by harnessing the power of 5G/6G, IoT, Digital Twin and Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) solutions, including High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS)-based stratospheric telecommunications. While constructing AI data centers and developing homegrown LLMs specialized for the Japanese language with 1 trillion parameters, SoftBank is applying AI to enhance radio access network performance (AI-RAN) with the aim of becoming a provider of next-generation social infrastructure. In recognition of its ESG initiatives, SoftBank Corp. was selected for inclusion in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI World) for 2022 and 2023, achieving the highest score in Japan and registering as the only company in the country to be selected for the Telecommunication Services industry group in 2023. To learn more, please visit https://www.softbank.jp/en/.
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