The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved Amazon’s $11.5 billion acquisition of satellite service provider Globalstar, removing a key regulatory hurdle in the company’s push to expand its Leo business into direct-to-device (D2D) services.

Amazon is to acquire full control of Globalstar, its subsidiaries, satellite infrastructure and mobile satellite spectrum.

The FCC’s Space Bureau approved the purchase of around 25MHz of Globalstar’s mobile satellite spectrum by Amazon.

It also cleared Amazon to access Globalstar’s C-3 system, a 48-satellite constellation intended to expand network capacity which the FCC approved last week.

Amazon must continue to comply with existing agreements between Globalstar and US defence and policing agencies.

The regulator explained the transaction could improve coverage in underserved areas, strengthen emergency communications, and grow industrial and enterprise data services.

“By approving this deal, the FCC has empowered Amazon Leo to deliver fast, next-generation satellite broadband services, increase competition and help communities stay connected”, FCC chair Brendan Carr said.

The FCC’s approval brings an anticipated close of the deal in 2027 a step closer and strengthens Amazon’s position in a market led by SpaceX’s Starlink, which operates more than 11,000 satellites.

Amazon Leo aims to launch services by the end of the year, with its next-generation D2D system planned for 2028.

It is seeking permission to launch up to 5,105 additional satellites for D2D services.

Globalstar provides connectivity for emergency calling and location features on Apple devices.

The FCC is due to vote on proposals to auction additional wireless spectrum and open up more for D2D services tomorrow (29 October).

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The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team is using HPE high performance computing technology to test car designs faster, cutting pre-race simulation time from three days to one.

To date, the team’s two drivers have won 12 Grand Prix this season, including Kimi Antonelli topping the podium at the Circuit of The Americas (CoTA) in Austin, Texas on 25 October. It was the ninth win of the season for the 20-year-old Antonelli, with teammate George Russell taking the other three.

At an event held before the race in Austin, Ruth Buscombe, a UK motorsport engineer, strategist and television broadcaster, told analysts and journalists this year’s rule changes had been the biggest since 2014.

Among the new rules, the cars’ power units are now split evenly between internal combustion and electrical power, and they must run on 100% sustainable fuel. The chassis is lighter and smaller, and the cars no longer generate most of their downforce through the floor.

All 11 teams also operate under the same financial cost cap, designed to limit spending and create a level playing field.

Those changes led to uncertainty for each team at the start of the season. Toto Wolff, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas team’s principal and CEO, describes a complete rethink of how the cars are operated, while a moderator at the event noted there is no in-season testing to fall back on.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas, though, got off to a strong start. Wolff stated the team “got it right from the get-go”.

Michael Taylor, the team’s IT director (pictured, left), said every aerodynamic idea the team develops starts with high-performance computing, which is where HPE’s work comes in.

HPE said in a March 2026 update its new computing environment cut pre-event simulation time from three days to one.

Wolff calls HPE “an integral part of our IT and technology story.” He is also clear data doesn’t make the decisions. He recalls an upgrade this season which was expected to cut three-and-a-half tenths of a second from a lap but left the car three-and-a-half tenths slower.

The sensors showed the aerodynamic load was as expected, and the engineers said everything was as they had thought. But the driver said the car was unpredictable and he had no confidence in it.

When data and driver disagree, Wolff’s default is to trust “the most expensive sensor,” the driver sitting in the car.

Taylor said the job on the IT side is to make sure data can be trusted in the first place, with reliability ahead of performance.

How it works
HPE provides the compute, networking, hybrid cloud and security infrastructure behind the team’s engineering and race operations.

On the simulation side, AMD-based HPE ProLiant servers and HPE GreenLake replaced the team’s previous high-performance computing infrastructure, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) work that shapes the car’s aerodynamics runs on them.

Max Walker, a chief technologist at HPE (pictured, left), has been part of the work with the F1 team from the start.

His remit covers HPE’s most strategic customers across the UK, Republic of Ireland, the Middle East and Africa.

“I kind of focus on the holy trinity of IT, so people, the process and the technology,” he said.

Walker describes the work as finding marginal gains and stated HPE’s contribution is “how we add our tenth-of-a-second to the performance of the team”.

Walker cited engineering as a common focus for HPE and Mercedes-AMG Petronas.

Testing, simulation
Walker said the new CFD platform replaced a legacy cluster running OpenFOAM, the open-source software the team uses for its simulations. HPE ships devices to the team, which benchmarks them in its own test harness before a full implementation is built.

“If that performance profile shows a benefit, a percentage increase, then we look to build a solution around it,” Walker said.

For Mercedes-AMG Petronas, the testing window is the gap between races.

“They could run more simulations in that time frame,” he said.

Walker explained “the CFD platform is like a digital twin of the car, or a component they want to test,” such as a front wing, brake duct or suspension part. It assesses changes in airflow and their potential impact on performance.

If the numbers look good, the part is made in carbon fibre, milled titanium or 3D-printed metal. It then goes through the wind tunnel and finite element stress testing before it reaches the track.

“That is a continuous loop of development throughout the whole season, 24-7. It never stops,” Walker said. “The car that starts at the start of the season isn’t the same car at the end of the season.”

Data
Walker said an F1 car typically carries around 200 sensors, which is roughly 18,000 channels of data. With the extra aerodynamic rakes teams run in practice to check airflow over the tires, that rises to about 400 sensors and 36,000 channels.

In the garage, “we have an umbilical cord, an Ethernet cable, essentially, that plugs into the car,” Walker said. It pulls between 2 and 5 gigabytes off the onboard computers over Aruba CX switches. Around 100 of the team’s race engineers at the circuit access the data wirelessly.

From there it travels over SD-WAN, compressed and optimised, to the team’s Brackley, UK, headquarters. It is also mirrored to the powertrain site at Brixworth, so engine and gearbox engineers see the same numbers in real time. The wide-area links come from a third-party provider, Walker said, because race circuits supply only part of the infrastructure.

Walker offers an example from Brazil, a few years ago. A warning from an engine sensor appeared on the steering wheel while Lewis Hamilton was driving for Mercedes-AMG Petronas. The pit wall saw it immediately, and the data went back to the factories. Walker recalled the sensor pointing to a serious fluid leak, the kind of fault which could have ended the race.

“In four corners, the data had got back, they spotted it in turn three,” he said. “By turn seven, they changed the engine mode, based on that data, to reduce the chance that the engine would destroy itself.”

History
When the partnership began, HPE’s assessment found a lot of ordinary PCs running at the circuit.

“Albeit that it worked, I think we had a much more eloquent and ruggedised platform, a more performance-dense platform,” Walker said.

The team moved to HPE Edgeline and added an Aruba Wi-Fi network, which meant greater available workload at the track and higher reliability.

“Consistency is key to unlocking performance,” he said, adding it let the team analyse data faster than its competitors.

At the factory, the aim was an infrastructure which largely runs itself. HPE built a software-defined data centre on Aruba CX networking and HPE Synergy compute, which Walker calls “the Swiss Army knife of platforms” because it can run bare metal, virtualisation or containers. An open-source automation layer on top lets the environment spin-up to meet engineers’ needs without manual work.

Self-driving networks, security
HPE is investing heavily in operational AI, Walker said, with agentic tools which watch network performance and recommend fixes, for instance flagging a saturated link and suggesting a quality-of-service change, with a person still in the loop.

“We don’t have to have humans’ eyes on glass anymore,” he said. “We have agentic bots that are doing the eyes on glass, but then prompting the human to do something about it.”

On security, Walker noted the team was once customers of Silver Peak, an SD-WAN specialist HPE acquired, and that the technology now sits within the vendor’s Aruba SASE portfolio.

HPE stated network access controls, encrypted connections and cloud-delivered security help protect distributed operations like the team’s.

How ideas get funded
HPE and Mercedes-AMG Petronas meet regularly in London for an innovation forum. They discuss upcoming HPE technology and the team’s requirements. Proposals need a business case showing a measurable benefit in operational efficiency, performance or sustainability, and must fit within the sport’s cost cap.

Walker compares the environment to a bank or a life sciences company, heavily regulated with finite money and people. If a new wing or brake duct can shave a tenth or a hundredth off a lap it will win investment over anything in IT, he said, unless IT can make its own case as it did with the CFD platform.

Those decisions are made quickly by Wolff and his management team, Walker said. “They’re very agile.”

The faster simulation platform came out of those discussions, Walker said. So did plans to use HPE Morpheus Enterprise, which he said will let engineers request infrastructure from a catalogue through automated workflows without adding to the team’s operational workload.

It also supports lower-cost virtualisation, “meaning that the team can do more for less,” Walker said.

Roadmap
Walker said Mercedes-AMG Petronas would probably be the first customer in the UK to receive a Gen 13 server, which the team will use to test performance, sustainability and workload density.

“We are seeing massive performance gains for Gen 13, and we see it’s got 50% more memory bandwidth,” he said. “And in a CFD workload, that’s a big deal.”

He noted the team has also worked with HPE on machine learning and reinforcement learning, with an emphasis on “consistency, reliability, and performance”. For some simulations, the aim is now to bring turnaround below a day.

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Analyst firm FDM CCS Insight gazed into its crystal ball to offer up its big predictions for 2027 and beyond, and didn’t hold back on its soothsaying with some big-name headline forecasts.

At an invite-only event in London this week, the company launched its annual set of 100 industry predictions. The shindig has become a recognised date on the industry calendar, and with good reason – after 13 years of peering into the future, FDM CCS Insight claims almost half (49%) of its predictions have come true.

100 predictions is a lot, so Mobile World Live has picked its 15 favourites and categorised them in the five hottest areas right now: AI (naturally), Satellite, Devices, Operators and 6G.

AI
FDM CCS Insight’s Ian Fogg asserted there will be more AI agents than people in the average household by 2030, noting that the average household has 2.64 people, and yet there are already 7.46 agent-capable devices (smartphone operating systems, smart home devices and smartphone apps) in these households. “It doesn’t take a lot for this prediction to come true,” noted Fogg. “Plus, many devices will run several agents.” In fact, speaking in a fireside chat at the event, Qualcomm’s Ben Timmons reckoned these numbers are undersold. “It’s going to be pretty quick for the agent to become central to everything you do in your personal and worklife. In two years’ time I predict people will be letting their agents have access to financial data too – they will be converted,” he stated.

The future doesn’t seem particularly bright for Generative AI pioneer OpenAI, with a prediction that OpenAI has a debt restructuring and CEO Sam Altman is shown the door by 2028.

It’s forecast that the company will fail to convince investors it has a viable commercial model, while struggling with escalating costs, concerns about data centres’ electricity and water use, and the high price of silicon needed to power AI services.

It’s been a busy week for AI-RAN, with chief proponent Nvidia unveiling a bevy of operator trial deals. But it’s US carrier T-Mobile US set to be the first operator to deploy AI radio access network technology according to the analysts, following an AI-RAN voice call first earlier this month.

Satellite
There’s mixed feelings on the future of Elon Musk’s SpaceX/Starlink operation.

On the one hand, there is a bold prediction that by 2030 Veon Group (Starlink’s biggest operator customer to date) will be bought by SpaceX, but there are also major concerns: one forecast fears SpaceX fails to win any mobile satellite spectrum in the EU’s allocation in 2027 and in the same year the EU backs a third satellite ecosystem to rival Starlink and AST SpaceMobile (built around Elveo and SES).

This latter prediction is fuelled by the big news this week that several major European operator groups are teaming on an alternative to Musk’s offering.

6G
The standout prediction in this category is a real surprise: Apple, typically a laggard when it comes to supporting brand new generations of mobile networks (the first iPhone didn’t even connect to 3G, with most users relying on Wi-Fi for fast browsing speeds), will have a 6G iPhone available alongside the first 6G commercial networks.

This change in tack will be thanks to Apple now producing its own cellular modem.

Elsewhere, analysts predicted operators in all initial 6G markets will launch 5G-Advanced first, and one in 10 smartphones sold in 2030 will support 6G (the earliest target date for commercial 6G launch is generally accepted as 2029).

Operators
Following recent high-profile mergers in Spain, the UK and France, FDM CCS Insight expects Germany to be the next European market to see consolidation. Specifically, in 2027, German operator 1&1 is acquired by one of its rivals – and Telefonica is tipped to be the most likely buyer of the country’s fourth player.

Meanwhile, Romania-based Digi Communications – already making a name for itself as one of Europe’s fastest-rising challenger brands with a presence in Spain, Belgium, Portugal and Italy – is tipped to enter three new European markets by 2028.

Devices
There are some quirky forecasts for the device market.

Following months of significant backlash against people wearing Meta’s smart version of the Ray-Ban Wayfarers, in 2027 sales of regular Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses will plummet as people become fearful of others demanding they take them off, without realising they are just regular sunglasses. And regulatory action in this area will ramp up: in 2028, the analysts predict that ‘camera in use’ indicators will become mandatory on wearable AI devices sold in the EU.

And in a nod to at least one Black Mirror episode, a smart contact lens is predicted to receive regulatory approval in a major market by 2031.

Finally, the trend toward longer device life cycles and a more circular approach to smartphone ownership (fuelled in part by mounting industry costs) spells bad news for the low-cost smartphone market. By 2028, the sub-$150 retail tier will disappear from major smartphone markets in the West, a prediction FDM CCS Insight senior partner Ben Wood describes as “a big blow” for manufacturers who have relied on ultralow-cost devices to boost sales volumes and expand access to mobile technology.

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Iceland’s telecoms regulator commenced a process which could boost local and private 5G network deployments by a host of industries and align the nation with broader global rollouts.

Fjarskiptastofa opened a consultation into allocating spectrum in the 3800MHz to 4200MHz frequency band, one which is widely regarded as ideal for local area networks where capacity matters.

The regulator listed factories, ports and utilities among businesses which could benefit from access to all or some of the spectrum, which it noted is also suitable for delivering fixed wireless access services.

It proposes providing two tiers of licences, one for low-power deployments and another for medium.

Fjarskiptastofa explained low-power settings would be confined within a 50-metre radius, with multiple transmitters allowed.

Medium-range deployments would be “limited to a specific transmission location”.

The regulator proposes licences spanning 20MHz, 40MHz, 60MHz, 80MHz and 100MHz of bandwidth, with the latter the maximum for each permit.

Licences would be valid for a decade and holders would be required to launch services within a year of receiving clearance.

Fjarskiptastofa’s consultation runs until 10 November, after which it intends to publish all comments not covered by confidentiality requests.

The band covered is already popular for private 5G services: in 2025, the European Union called for member states to harmonise access, arguing there are broad benefits for industrial and non-industrial players.

But there are concerns the harmonised approach in the region may not be the panacea it first seems: in 2022, the GSMA expressed concern some member states could favour specific systems and so constrain the market.

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The US Commerce Department awarded $389 million in R&D funding to four companies working on semiconductor development, under the government’s CHIPS and Science Act.

In a statement, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick explained the funding “will accelerate American semiconductor innovation to enhance our domestic energy and power resources”.

As a condition of the close to $400 million outlay, the US government will receive minority, non-controlling and non-equity stakes in the four companies.

Washington-based Helion, which develops high-voltage power semiconductors and advanced energy power modules, will receive the biggest investment at $175 million.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems is in line for an $85 million investment, which it will use to develop semiconductor technologies for robotic maintenance.

Meanwhile, Vertical Semiconductors will get $73 million for its work across AI data centre racks and Sibelco North America will receive $56 million.

Bill Frauenhofer, executive director of Semiconductor Investment and Innovation at the Commerce Department added: “Accelerating domestic R&D across these technologies will strengthen America’s ability to convert and deliver power for the grid, advanced data centres, defence systems, and emerging fusion energy.”

Reuters reported the Commerce Department has awarded a total of 19 R&D grants to semiconductor companies, as part of the $10 billion fund under the CHIPS and Science Act approved by the government in 2022.

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With Nvidia’s GTC Berlin event in full swing, the company’s telecoms boss Ronnie Vasishta and Nokia chief technology and AI officer Pallavi Mahajan sit down with the Mobile World Live Podcast in an exclusive interview to reveal the next stage of the pair’s AI-RAN journey, as they team up with European heavyweights to turn networks into distributed intelligence platforms.

Listen on Spotify
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00:00 — AI-RAN explained
7:20 — Operator trials
11:00 — Beyond edge hype
15:05 — AI-RAN economics
17:45 — Sovereign AI
21:10 — Commercialisation and 6G

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Toshiba addressed what it believes is complexity in deploying quantum-safe networks with the release of a platform it stated can lower the need for specific fibre connectivity and equipment.

The Japanese company is targeting the platform at network operators, enterprises, public-sector groups and companies running data centres. It is pitching the set-up as offering more than a bump to security, highlighting potential competitive advantages and revenue opportunities.

Toshiba echoed concerns expressed by many over the potential dangers of quantum computing, noting some nefarious types are already harvesting data to be decrypted when compatible machines come online.

It stated governments, “regulators and standards bodies” are already pressing for action to address potential threats.

The sales pitch for Toshiba’s platform centres on the simplicity of deployment. It states organisations “do not need to rebuild their networks” to use the set-up, which “integrates with existing network infrastructures” and can be run through “a single dedicated connection to large metro, hub-and-spoke, ring, mesh and long-distance networks”.

Andrew Shields, VP of Toshiba Europe and head of its Quantum Technology Division, said the platform should prove cost-effective in deployments “across large-scale networks”.

Toshiba equipped the platform with post-quantum cryptography, quantum key distribution and random number generation, technologies widely regarded as being suitably robust to secure the future computing systems.

Hiroshi Tsukino, VP of Toshiba’s ICT Solutions Division, said the move to quantum-safe technologies is “the largest cryptographic transformation in history” and urged organisations to begin preparing today.

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For much of the last two decades, the digital divide has been viewed primarily as an infrastructure problem. The assumption was if networks were built, people would connect.

Across the developing Asia Pacific (APAC) region, the assumption no longer holds. A new study by GSMA Intelligence and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) reveals this stark reality.

Developing APAC is home to 4.3 billion people, more than half of the world’s population, and 71% of people use mobile internet, equivalent to 3.1 billion individuals.

However, 1.1 billion people live within reach of 4G networks but do not use them. By comparison, 100 million people remain outside mobile broadband coverage altogether.

The region’s connectivity gap is therefore no longer primarily about coverage. It is increasingly about enabling people to access and use mobile internet meaningfully, in a way which improves their lives.

The shift from coverage to usage is important because mobile connectivity has become far more than a communications service. As countries accelerate their digital transformation agendas, connectivity provides the foundation for digital public infrastructure, digital services, data-driven innovation and the adoption of AI across economies.

Countries seeking to become digital nations cannot do so if large segments of their populations remain disconnected from the internet economy.

What stops people from connecting?
The study shows the primary barriers to mobile internet adoption are device affordability, and digital skills and literacy.

For example, the average cost of an entry-level internet-enabled device in the region is more than 60% of the monthly income for the poorest 40% of the population, more than three-times higher than what is considered affordable.

Survey evidence also shows safety and security, particularly scams and fraud, are becoming increasingly significant concerns. This highlights the importance of trust as a broader enabler of digital adoption. As digital services become increasingly AI-enabled, it is also becoming more important to ensure these are accessible and relevant in local languages.

The barriers to adoption remain unevenly distributed. Women across developing APAC remain 12% less likely than men to use mobile internet, while rural populations are 25% less likely than urban populations to do so. These disparities are even wider in certain regions such as the Pacific Islands and South Asia.

These gaps are as much economic issues as they are social. Every individual left offline has limited access to services or opportunities for economic participation. Closing the mobile connectivity gap by 2030 is expected to add $230 billion to the developing APAC economy. And GDP is only part of the story. Universal connectivity would also accelerate progress on poverty reduction, education, healthcare access, financial inclusion, disaster response and environmental sustainability. For many people, particularly in remote regions, connectivity increasingly determines whether essential services and economic opportunities are within reach.

What needs to be done?
The study demonstrates there is a strong economic case for closing the digital divide, but doing so requires coordinated policy reform, investment and implementation.

Countries in developing APAC have made substantial progress to bring more than half a billion people online in the past five years. By 2030, it is expected more than three quarters of adults will be using 4G or 5G mobile internet. To connect the remaining offline populations will require a total investment of $316 billion. The private sector is expected to generate $132 billion of investment, which means there is an investment gap of $184 billion.

At first glance the figure appears daunting. However, the composition of the gap tells a more encouraging story.

More than half of the investment gap relates to improving device affordability and digital skills. In other words, the largest barriers are not engineering challenges but rather policy, financing and development challenges. This calls for holistic multi-stakeholder strategies which look beyond network rollout and address the conditions enabling people to adopt and meaningfully use digital services.

Historically, connectivity strategies and universal service funds have often focused on infrastructure expansion. While infrastructure remains important, particularly in underserved rural areas, a more balanced approach is needed to address affordability and adoption barriers directly. Supporting device financing schemes, reducing sector-specific taxes, reforming universal service funds and investing in digital literacy programmes will generate far greater returns than traditional approaches alone. Importantly, these policies also help crowd in private investment rather than replace it.

From connected to digital nations
Over the next decade, governments across developing Asia Pacific are increasingly expected to focus on AI, digital public infrastructure and national digital transformation strategies. These ambitions are well founded, but they all rest on a common foundation: affordable, safe, meaningful and inclusive connectivity.

Without universal access and adoption, the benefits of AI and digital transformation risk being concentrated among those already connected, further widening existing inequalities.

The good news is developing APAC has already solved much of the challenge. With 98% 4G network coverage, the region has built an extraordinary platform for digital inclusion. The task now is to ensure everyone can actually use it. The next phase of digital inclusion will, therefore, not be defined by network coverage alone. It will be shaped by affordability, skills, trust, accessibility and relevance. Closing these gaps may prove to be one of the most important development challenges and opportunities of the next decade.

The editorial views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and will not necessarily reflect the views of the GSMA, its Members or Associate Members.

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Chipmaker Qualcomm reportedly will cut an undetermined number of jobs following recent annual employee reviews, with impacted staff set to be alerted next month.

Reuters reported CEO ​Cristiano Amon (pictured) sent out a memo outlining the cuts were part of a plan to create “a stronger performance culture” and address areas where the company “has consistently fallen short of expectations”.

The news agency noted the memo did not disclose how many employees will lose their jobs but stated it had roughly 52,000 employees globally, most of them full time, as of September 2025.

While Amon has made a concerted effort to branch the company’s products beyond phone chips, Qualcomm has battled against the impact of a worldwide memory supply crunch.

For fiscal Q3, it posted revenue of $9.9 billion for the quarter ended 28 June, down 4% from $10.4 billion a year earlier while net income during the period was $2 billion, for a 25% year-on-year decrease.

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PHY Wireless and Ubiik teamed up to combine private LTE and 5G connectivity with device-based positioning, offering enterprise and industrial users a 3GPP standards-based alternative to proprietary location systems.

The collaboration combines Ubiik’s private LTE and 5G infrastructure with PHY Wireless’ hellaPHY technology, enabling enterprises, utilities, hospitals, and campuses to run communications and location services on a single network.

Potential applications include tracking assets, vehicles and equipment, improving worker safety and supporting physical AI deployments.

The companies explained GPS and Wi-Fi positioning can struggle in warehouses, containers and factories and may increase battery consumption. HellaPHY calculates location on the device rather than in the cloud, allowing devices to determine when an update is required.

This approach apparently reduces network traffic, data costs and power use, while enhancing privacy.

Because the system operates over standard LTE and 5G, customers could add positioning capabilities to existing private networks rather than deploy separate infrastructure, which the companies said would reduce deployment costs and simplify operations.

The pair also claimed the technology provides metre-level accuracy and can cut device power consumption by up to 10 times compared with alternative approaches. This aligns with emerging 5G-Advanced, eRedCap and 6G sensing standards.

PHY Wireless CEO Tom Horgan said organisations pursuing physical AI and automation require location technology that can scale across thousands of devices at a manageable cost. He stated location awareness is becoming a foundational capability for next-generation enterprise and industrial applications.

Ubiik CEO TH Peng added the collaboration demonstrated how the company could adapt its private LTE platform to incorporate new technology and support changing customer requirements.

The post PHY Wireless, Ubiik blend location into private LTE, 5G appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Globalstar secured US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval for its next-generation C-3 satellite system as Amazon prepares to acquire the company.

The FCC granted nationwide authority to operate the system, which is designed to connect hundreds of millions of mobile devices in the US, including through direct-to-device (D2D) links to smartphones. The order also covers ground station antennas in Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.

The approval strengthens the regulatory position of an asset central to Amazon’s effort to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink for D2D services.

C-3 will comprise 48 low Earth orbit birds at an altitude of 1,414 kilometres, along with six in-orbit spares and about 90 six-metre ground antennas worldwide. MDA Space is building the satellites in Canada, while control centres in Toulouse, France and at Globalstar’s Louisiana headquarters will oversee operations. France filed the system’s notification with the ITU.

CEO Paul Jacobs described the approval as a key step in improving the capacity, performance and flexibility of Globalstar’s services. Regulatory affairs chief Barbee Ponder said it concluded a multi-year licensing process with the FCC’s Space Bureau.

In April, Amazon agreed to acquire the satellite company for $11.6 billion as part of a push to add D2D services to its Amazon Leo constellation. The deal is expected to close in 2027, subject to regulatory approval and Globalstar meeting specified satellite milestones.

In July, Amazon Leo applied to the FCC in July for permission to deploy up to 5,105 satellites for direct-to-device services.

As of October, Amazon communications manager Zack Brown said the company had 396 LEO satellites in orbit and had built more than 1,000 at its 172,000-square-foot production facility in Kirkland, Washington.

Apple is a long-term Globalstar partner and has invested more than $1 billion in the company. Globalstar’s existing fleet supports iPhone satellite features including emergency texting, messaging, roadside assistance and location sharing.

Amazon also signed a separate agreement to provide satellite connectivity for current and future iPhones and Apple Watches, and committed to maintaining those services.

The post FCC clears Globalstar C-3 constellation as Amazon deal looms appeared first on Mobile World Live.

The National Basketball Association (NBA), Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and AT&T revealed the launch of the fourth generation of the High-Speed Arena Network (HSAN), the latest iteration of the leagues’ connectivity platform built to transport live game content, highlights, replays, in-arena programming and stats to fans and business partners.

With more than 68,000 miles of the operator’s fibre and network infrastructure, the HSAN will be built to transport more than 118 concurrent, high-quality, low-latency streams per game, supporting millions of hours of basketball consumption during the 2027-28 NBA season.

AT&T chief marketing and growth officer Kellyn Smith Kenny stated fans consume basketball across live broadcasts, replays, highlights, social media and NBA digital platforms. She added the companies were building the connectivity needed to distribute game content quickly and reliably, helping viewers stay connected to key moments wherever they watch.

AT&T, the NBA and the WNBA also extended their longstanding marketing partnership, continuing the operator role as the leagues’ Official Connectivity Partner, building on a relationship which began in 2018. The extension also continues AT&T’s partnership with the NBA G League, USA Basketball and NBA Take-Two Media.

As part of the marketing partnership, AT&T and the NBA will create new fan touchpoints across content and retail activations and give them more opportunities to engage with NBA stars and AT&T athletes. The operator will also continue to connect fans with their favourite teams and players through its partnerships with the Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks, Miami Heat and LA Clippers.

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Interview: Seven months after its launch at MWC Barcelona 2026, the Linux Foundation’s OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation has added major technology companies and issued the second version of its open-source RAN software.

Dr Tom Rondeau (pictured below), principal director of the US Department of War’s FutureG programme, told Mobile World Live the initiative is working to a six month release cadence. The first release arrived in April, followed by the second version on 8 October.

OCUDU, short for Open Centralised Unit Distributed Unit, hosts open-source software for the RAN’s central and distributed units.

When the foundation launched, its members included AMD, AT&T, Ericsson, Nokia, Nvidia, SoftBank Corp and Verizon. FutureG and the US National Spectrum Consortium agreed to back it for three years with funds to be appropriated by Congress.

April release
Rondeau said the April release was mainly a rebuild. Software Radio Systems (SRS) re-architected its RAN code base, which dates back to the LTE-era, so a wider open-source community could work on it. He noted much of the cybersecurity benefit comes from making the code readable and clean.

“What that included though, aside from just good coding practices, was a basic 5G RAN that you could stand up,” he said. “A fundamental 5G with no bells and whistles necessarily but you could make a call across it, and you could have a data connection usually from standard 5G UEs”.

“That was important just as a proof of concept to get the basic bones of a 5G system out there and get people looking at the code and working with it,” he added.

It also included a significant number of interfaces based both on 3GPP and O-RAN Alliance specifications.

Rondeau said feedback on the first release has been positive, with developers describing the code as easy to use, fast and well documented. He added people have been “coming out of the woodwork” to say they have used OCUDU successfully.

October release
The latest version focuses on radio performance, led by beamforming and more advanced multi-antenna support. It also added work on non-public networks, resilience upgrades, bug fixes and support for more powerful phased-array radio units.

Rondeau said developers have repeatedly asked whether OCUDU can support non-terrestrial networks (NTN). The October release incorporated the 3GPP’s Release 17 NTN specification, drawing on SRS’ experience in the area and giving developers a platform for exploring space-based communications.

Membership growth
Samsung joined as a premier member in April, followed by Qualcomm in May and Intel in August, taking the group to 12 premier members and 34 general ones.

The premier members sit on the governing board and help drive the roadmap. Day-to-day, though, most of the companies still build their own features or are integrating OCUDU with their own products or stacks.

Genuine collaborative development, Rondeau said, is “a cultural thing that needs to be continuously worked on”. He stated the Linux Foundation had told his department OCUDU was its third-fastest-growing project.

Roadmap
Rondeau said the organisation is striving for at “least one real champion” to say it has integrated OCUDU into its products and can use it in commercial release.

“A year from now may be a little bit early,” he acknowledged. Integration in prototypes or test facilities would count, and he has heard “good rumours” about companies moving aggressively on their own.

A separate contract with Cohere Technologies, awarded by Rondeau’s office, offers another test. The goal is to use OCUDU to set up a call over the standard 5G NR waveform, then negotiate a switch to another waveform for the data plane.

In Cohere’s case that is Zac-Orthogonal Time Frequency and Space (OTFS), which lets the department test sensing and communications together. It will be built around an OCUDU-based RAN stack, which Rondeau called a major proof of concept for Cohere and for OCUDU as the core software of a working RAN.

That contract runs for two years, with completion expected around the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and intermediate deliverables along the way. It will not be public in the way OCUDU is but Cohere has committed to releasing the interfaces back into the project.

The work also feeds into integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) which Rondeau sees as one leg of 6G alongside connectivity and edge AI compute.

Rondeau said sensing is critical to the US Department of War because it could close capability gaps and reduce the number of specialised sensors it needs to carry or deploy.

He added the US must compete with authoritarian adversaries which may take different approaches to how ISAC standards and technologies govern data management, security, processing and access.

The post OCUDU adds key members as open-source RAN code matures appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone Group signed a letter of intent to explore a joint bid for a future allocation of spectrum for Mobile Satellite Services, as part of efforts to advance direct-to-device (D2D) capabilities in Europe.

The operators jointly stated their initiative backs a European Commission (EC) ambition to strengthen sovereignty, security and resilience in critical connectivity infrastructure.

News of a potential joint bid emerged last month when Bloomberg reported the four had entered discussions to bid on a third of the total spectrum due to be allocated by the EC in the 2GHz band, which has been reserved for European companies.

In a pitch heavy on the advantages of working together, the quartet explained a joint bid for spectrum would enable each provider with open and non-discriminatory access to offer D2D to customers in a model designed to “foster competition, reduce market fragmentation and expand consumer choice across Europe”.

They aim to use satellite to connect underserved areas, strengthen public networks, protect critical communications and support the development of a European constellation.

The operators plan to establish key ground infrastructure, critical coordination and monitoring functions without investing directly in a satellite constellation.

This opens the door to a partnership with a satellite partner, which is yet to be selected.

Execution
The letter of intent does not replace any existing satellite partnerships.

Vodafone’s satellite activity is particularly high-profile, with the company involved in a joint venture with US-based AST SpaceMobile.

Paolo Pescatore, analyst at PP Foresight, said the announcement is more an exploratory agreement rather than a confirmed launch.

“The opportunity is to make satellite coverage a seamless extension of mobile connectivity. Success will depend on execution, device compatibility and pricing that gives customers a compelling reason to pay, along with reassurance that they can stay connected in more places.”

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Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin outlined a plan to spend $330 million on extensive upgrades to its launch facilities in the US state of Florida to support multiple flights per week by the end of the decade. 

Blue Origin revealed it will add two additional launch and landing pads for its New Glenn rockets while also boosting its second stage manufacturing capabilities. Ian Richardson, Blue Origin’s SVP of operations, stated in a blog the expansion will be completed by the middle of 2027.

“These investments are centred on one goal: building the capacity to support more missions, more reliably, and more efficiently,” he said. “As we look ahead, this infrastructure is designed to support multiple flights per week by the end of the decade.”

The upgrades also include a new customer integration facility with the US Space Force at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida to give it “the ability to prepare multiple missions at once”.

Richardson noted the company has invested more than $3 billion in facilities and infrastructure across the state with more than 5,000 employees.

Blue Origin is seeking to ramp up the cadence of its rocket launches to better compete against Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Currently, Blue Origin has 396 LEO birds in orbit while SpaceX has approximately 11,150 Starlink satellites.

While SpaceX and Blue Origin use their rockets to launch satellites from other companies, CNBC reported the former has stopped commercial rides on its Falcon 9 rocket to support its larger Starship model.

Blue Origin suffered a setback in May when one of its New Glenn rockets exploded on the Florida launch pad. In July, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp outlined a plan to rebuild its launch pad with a new configuration as it works toward returning its New Glenn rocket to flight before the end of 2026.

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Reliance Industries appeared to hit back at Elon Musk’s suggestions its owner Mukesh Ambani (pictured) was blocking Starlink’s entry into India, stating it welcomes competition and pointing out its own satellite venture has also not been cleared by regulators.

In a statement on Musk-owned X, Reliance said considering recent remarks about the company and the Indian market, it wished to put on record that like every Indian enterprise it had grown in a country that welcomes investment and innovation.

It continued to state the open nature of the Indian market rests on the rule of law, and the government has stated it applies the same process to every applicant, Indian or foreign.

“Jio’s own satellite service awaits clearances,” it said. “At Reliance we never feared competition… we welcome competition in satellite communications, including Starlink. Every player, Jio included, must serve the people of India and abide by the laws and policies of the land.”

Reliance’s statement followed a series of Musk’s own posts regarding Starlink’s entrance into India. The SpaceX chief claimed “certain oligarchs” were delaying its entry into the country to maintain a “monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people”.

While emphasising the benefits satellite connectivity will have on the Indian market, Musk sarcastically addressed Ambani as India’s real Prime Minister and asked if he would “consider allowing Starlink to compete”.

Musk also described suggestions Starlink would struggle to compete with Jio and its low-cost data plans as “absurd, hypocrisy and hyperbole”.

India’s government has also rejected Musk’s claims, stating its satellite communications framework is fair and non-discriminatory while emphasising that Starlink, Jio and Sunil Bharti Mittal-backed Eutelsat OneWeb are all awaiting security clearance and spectrum allocation.

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Japan will pump $20 billion in funding into two new semiconductor facilities in the US as part of a trade agreement between the two countries, with GlobalFoundries selected to operate the sites.

The move forms part of a wider trade deal between the countries for Japan to invest $550 billion in return for the US lowering tariffs of Japanese goods.

GlobalFoundries will build the new sites at its Malta, New York, campus with the initiative designed to accelerate trusted semiconductor manufacturing in the US, strengthen critical supply chains and support growing demand across automotive, industrial and connected infrastructure markets.

Japan will make an initial investment of approximately $10 billion, accelerating construction of a new 300mm semiconductor fab which is expected to come online in 2029. It will add approximately 900,000 wafers of annual manufacturing capacity when fully operational.

An additional $10 billion will fund a second fab, which will produce the same amount of wafers. The entire project is expected to create about 27,000 construction and ecosystem jobs and more than 1,000 highly skilled manufacturing jobs in New York’s Capital Region.

Bold
GlobalFoundries has also agreed a deal with the US Commerce Department to amend an existing award under the CHIPS and Science Act to reallocate $995 million towards investments in silicon photonics and other areas. This will expand manufacturing capacity for technologies “increasingly critical to communications infrastructure and data centres”.

As part of a separate arrangement, the US government will receive approximately 4% equity in GlobalFoundries, taking its total stake to 7%.

Tom Breen, CEO of GlobalFoundries said the initiative was a bold new step for semiconductor manufacturing, bringing together the US and Japan with differentiated technology and decades of manufacturing expertise.

Howard Lutnick, US secretary of commerce added President Donald Trump’s historic US, Japan trade deal “is delivering another massive manufacturing investment into America”.

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NTT Docomo and US-based network equipment manufacturer Abside Networks signed an agreement to explore next-generation, AI-driven networks using high-altitude platform stations (HAPS), as operators look to extend networks beyond terrestrial infrastructure.

Under the memorandum of understanding (MoU), the pair will collaborate on HAPS system architecture, network control and data utilisation. They will also examine how AI can forecast demand and manage radio beams, capacity, spectrum and interference in stratospheric RAN.

In addition, the partners plan to study the collection and use of data on network quality, operations and stratospheric sensing, as well as potential integration with external applications and service platforms.

The agreement supports NTT Docomo’s broader vision for a “three-dimensional communications infrastructure that integrates AI with non-terrestrial network (NTN) initiatives, including HAPS”. Operating at altitudes of around 20km, HAPS use unmanned platforms to provide wide-area connectivity, including to underserved locations where conventional mobile coverage is difficult or uneconomical, such as mountainous regions and maritime areas.

The Japanese operator explained it aims to integrate terrestrial networks with systems in the stratosphere and space to enable wider-area, higher-capacity services that address mounting connectivity demand as AI usage balloons.

NTT Docomo has been conducting research and demonstrations aimed at delivering HAPS-based communications services, but noted the stratospheric environment requires specialised RAN technologies and equipment.

As a result, Abside is developing radio systems based on large antenna arrays for precise beam control, alongside an AI-driven software platform designed to provide “integrated control of networks across the ground, stratosphere and space”.

The equipment manufacturer also brings experience in stratospheric communications through its work on Google’s Project Loon balloon initiative, alongside development of HAPS equipment, NTN technologies and AI-based network control systems.

The post Docomo, Abside team on AI for HAPS communications appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Interview: AT&T Business selected Amazon Leo for an enterprise broadband service designed to complement its fibre and 5G offerings, describing the satellite provider as a business-grade alternative to Starlink.

Shawn Hakl, SVP and head of product at AT&T Business (pictured), told Mobile World Live the service adds a third connectivity option, including in areas beyond the reach of AT&T’s terrestrial networks.

“We’ve done a lot of integration with Amazon and we’re working with them at different levels,” he said. “We’ve tested the product out pretty extensively and we’ve seen sub-50 millisecond latency. We’re also extremely happy with the throughput.”

Amazon Leo selected AT&T Business as its sole US telecoms launch partner.

“They’ve been extremely willing to work with us to fine-tune the interaction between the two networks,” Hakl explained. “We’re working closely with them on how to harmonise the in-air component and the interaction between our network and the ground stations.”

AT&T Business is providing the last-mile connectivity and local customer equipment for the service, while working with Amazon on the interaction between AT&T’s terrestrial network and Amazon Leo’s ground stations.

He said the operator is striving to make the connection between its network and the cloud “a software consumable element” which could be combined with satellite, wireless and wireline connectivity in an end-to-end architecture rather than offered as a series of point-to-point products.

Hakl said some customers will want traditional active-passive setups, others active configurations and some multiple-box arrangements.

“I don’t think we can get down to a single box in the first iteration,” he noted.

Hakl stated combining fibre, 5G and satellite will enable AT&T Business to deliver different services, SLAs and business outcomes for each customer. This will give customers more granular control over how applications use network resources, including the ability to balance performance, cost and security across their connectivity options.

Customers could choose how much control they retain, Hakl said. Some may want to manage network decisions in detail, while others could leave them to AI models.

Hakl noted AT&T has sold satellite services for a decade, particularly in agriculture, manufacturing and retail, while public safety through FirstNet is another area of focus.

“If the price point comes down, obviously it becomes more of an option for different segments in the market,” he stated. “We’re just impressed with Amazon’s technology and feel like it’s the business-grade solution that’s out there.”

Hakl said AT&T Business expects to offer the service next year, although the timing remains tied to Amazon Leo’s satellite launch schedule.

Launch timing
In July, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp outlined a plan to rebuild its Florida launch pad with a new configuration after a failed attempt as it works toward returning its New Glenn rocket to flight before the end of the year.

Also in July, Amazon Leo applied to the US Federal Communications Commission to deploy up to 5,105 birds to deliver direct-to-device services to mobile devices.

And in October, Amazon company communications manager Zack Brown revealed the company currently has 396 LEO birds in orbit and said the company has built over 1,000 satellites at its 172,000-square-foot production facility in Kirkland, Washington.

The post AT&T is flying with Amazon Leo instead of Starlink appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Elon Musk pledged to make Starlink affordable in India as he renewed his attack on billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s (pictured) telecoms dominance, days before Jio Platforms launches a record-breaking IPO.

In a series of posts on social media platform X, the SpaceX chief argued that competition from Starlink would benefit Indian consumers by expanding connectivity options. “The reality is that competition would greatly benefit the average citizen in India by giving them more choices, as it always does,” he explained, adding, “Ambani’s profits will be lower, but he is not going out of business”.

Musk also dismissed claims that Starlink would struggle to compete with Jio’s low-cost data plans while also posing a threat to the incumbent operator. “This is absurd hypocrisy and hyperbole,” he said.

His comments come as Jio Platforms targets a valuation of around $106 billion, according to Reuters, in a planned IPO that could become India’s largest-ever listing. The business includes telecoms operation Reliance Jio, which reported 524.4 million subscribers at the end of March, including 268.5 million 5G customers.

“Prime Minister Ambani“
Musk has escalated his criticism of India’s regulatory process in recent days, accusing authorities and “certain oligarchs” of delaying Starlink’s entry into the country to maintain a “monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people”.

In a separate post on Friday (9 October), he sarcastically addressed the Jio Platforms-owner as “Prime Minister Ambani” and asked whether he would “consider allowing Starlink to compete”.

He argued satellite connectivity could bring internet access to underserved communities, improve educational opportunities and enable small businesses to reach international markets.

“Please accept my humble apologies for not realizing that you are the real boss of India,” he wrote, adding “Starlink would change their lives for the better”.

India’s Ministry of Communications has rejected allegations of discriminatory treatment, stating that Starlink and incumbents Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio were at broadly the same stage of the regulatory process. All three have secured initial approvals but remain subject to outstanding security clearances before they can obtain spectrum access.

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