High Altitude Platform Stations, or HAPS, are often described rather simply as "flying base stations". The idea is to place a communications platform in the stratosphere, typically around 20 km above the Earth, where it can provide mobile coverage across a much larger area than a conventional terrestrial base station. SoftBank's latest HAPS trials in Japan suggest that this description may increasingly undersell what these platforms could eventually do. In August 2026, SoftBank and US-based Sceye conducted a series of HAPS communications trials off Cape Muroto in Kochi Prefecture. The tests included conventional smartphone connectivity, communications with drones and, perhaps most interestingly, edge computing performed directly aboard the HAPS. SoftBank sees these capabilities eventually becoming part of a three-dimensional communications network integrating terrestrial networks, HAPS and satellites. The platform itself was Sceye's lighter-than-air, or LTA, HAPS. U...
2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, 6G, Wi-Fi, IoT, Bluetooth, LoRaWAN, Sigfox, Satellites