MediaTek, Inmarsat take 5G NB-IoT to the skiesMediaTek, Inmarsat take 5G NB-IoT to the skies

Taiwanese chipset maker MediaTek has teamed up with Inmarsat, a British satellite telecoms company, to put NB-IoT through its paces at 35,000km above the equator.

In what was billed a successful trial, a bi-directional data link was set up between a MediaTek satellite‑enabled NB-IoT device – located at the Fucino Space Center in northern Italy – to Inmarsat's Alphasat.

Figure 2: Satellite communications: Built by Astrium, Inmarsat's Alphasat is the largest European telecom satellite ever built.
(Source: ESA)

Dubbed the biggest public-private space project in Europe, Alphasat is a geostationary orbit (GEO) satellite using L-Band spectrum (1GHz–2GHz).

Its coverage footprint extends across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Look to the skies

The two companies are not working in isolation. Results of the NB-IoT fields test will be fed into 3GPP's Release 17 standardization work on Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN).