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Vodafone have launched their new satellite mobile programme as they look to eliminate zones of no coverage.
The link up with AST SpaceMobile, a Texas-based company, has a target of reaching 100 per cent coverage across the entirety of Europe and will be challenging the likes of Starlink, part of Elon Musk-owned company SpaceX, the Amazon-owned Space Kuiper and OneWeb, which is part of the French organisation Eutelsat.
Vodafone completed what they called the world’s first space-based mobile video call from an area with zero mobile coverage in January, and now under the new venture – called SatCo – plan to commercially offer their technology to other mobile operators across the continent.
In practice, it’s intended that this means mobile phone users will be able to switch from their 4G or 5G networks, through to satellite coverage on the same device. Vodafone CEO Margherita Della Valle has previously noted how that differentiates the service from Starlink and others, saying that that people associated it with “requiring special devices, dishes and the like”, rather than simply using their current mobile phones.
Ms Della Valle has been restructuring Vodafone since taking over as chief executive in April 2023, including selling off divisions in Italy and Spain since then and overseeing the £15bn merger with Three in the UK, which is expected to go through later this year.
While the Vodafone share price has fallen 50 per cent over the past five years, it has largely stabilised since July 2023, trading a relatively narrow price band of around 80 pence to 65 pence per share since then. It currently sits at 70p, up 2.6 per cent in 2025.
The company sits in 30th spot in the FTSE 100 table by its market capitalisation of £17.7bn.
While the UK operations have been improving, sales in its biggest market, Germany, fell in its most recent trading quarter, partly due to domestic law changes around TV package bundling.
In order to complete the Three merger, Vodafone agreed to invest billions in the combined 5G network in the UK, while now this space race endeavour will see them invest further in eliminating service “not-spots”, as they’ve been dubbed, potentially growing future revenues across Europe as a result.
“Vodafone’s space-based mobile broadband will mean our customers can stay connected, wherever they are,” Ms Della Valle said.
“Our new satellite company will be able to offer this pioneering technology to other European mobile operators through a turnkey service that combines Vodafone’s leading network and engineering with AST SpaceMobile’s ‘antennas in the sky’.”
Other UK operators have trialled Starlink technology to do the same, but Vodafone believe their approach the superior one due to no additional hardware being required.
The Telegraph reported in February that ministers may scale back a £1bn project to bring coverage to the most rural areas, in a bid to save on costs.
