Bharti Airtel  and SoftBank Mobile have said that they have succeeded in field trial for developing low-cost mobile service coverage using satellite communications.

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The technology will provide cost-efficient 3G mobile phone services using a communications satellite as a transmission line following a field trial conducted in actual environments in the Republic of Kenya.

For areas where it is difficult to build facilities for fixed-line telecommunications and mobile communications, the development of communications networks using satellite transmission lines has been considered but expensive usage fees have been the primary barrier.

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With this trial, Bharti Airtel and SoftBank Mobile validated technologies and methods for providing communications services using a communications satellite in rural areas at a low cost.

The technology to provide communications services using the spectrum of a communicatons satellite has already been developed and commercialized by SoftBank Mobile, and it was utilized when the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred in March 2011 to rebuild mobile phone networks in out-of-range areas by operating over 300 satellite base stations.

This technology was combined with a technology to expand cell sizes, which enables service coverage expansion for each base station. The technology validated through the field trial also achieves both high speeds and low costs, two service aspects that are usually in conflict, through the dynamic allocation of satellite spectrum to each base station depending on its respective traffic volume.  This will enable 3G mobile phone service in remote locations where transmission lines cannot usually reach while achieving drastic reductions in transmission line costs.

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Bayan Monadjem, Chief Technical Officer of Bharti Airtel Africa, stated, “This technology is critically important to the development of mobile phone networks in rural areas in Africa and other areas where commercialization of such operations is challenging.”

Junichi Miyakawa, Executive Vice President, Director & CTO of SoftBank Mobile said “Harnessing SoftBank’s technology in rural areas in the world literally matches our corporate philosophy,  “Information Revolution, Happiness for everyone”.  I hope this technology will make communication even more free and convenient for people around the world.”

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