At the Global 5G Evolution Workshop a couple of months ago, Soham Desai, Staff Wireless Systems Engineer at Skylo, delivered an insightful session on the progress of voice over NB-NTN and why this capability is now becoming practical. His talk walked through the state of the technology, the recent advances that make narrowband satellite voice possible, and the work being done in 3GPP to support it. Soham began by introducing Skylo and its role in enabling direct-to-device (D2D) satellite connectivity. Skylo works with a wide ecosystem that spans chipset vendors, device manufacturers, carriers and test equipment providers. The company promotes a hybrid approach that allows a single device and SIM to move seamlessly between terrestrial networks and Skylo’s satellite network whenever coverage is needed. A large number of consumer devices, including popular smartphones and smartwatches, already use Skylo’s services for satellite SOS and messaging, supported by a growing base of partners an...
2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, 6G, Wi-Fi, IoT, Bluetooth, LoRaWAN, Sigfox, Satellites