Congrats to Starbridge portfolio company Ubiquitilink! For those who haven’t yet read the recent WSJ and/or Techcrunch articles (first, second), Ubiquitilink launched and tested their basic connectivity on a Cygnus ISS resupply mission demonstrating basic SMS capabilities from orbit to an unmodified cell phone on the ground.
“Our first tests demonstrated that we offset the Doppler shift and time delay. Everything else is leveraging commercial software,” Miller said, though he quickly added: “To be clear, there’s plenty more work to be done, but it isn’t anything that’s new technology. It’s good solid hardcore engineering, building nanosats and that sort of thing.” (Techcrunch)
The company is working with existing mobile networks so there is no need for Ubiquitilink to create its own mobile network or for the end customer to switch mobile providers.
Ubiquitilink is developing a network of small "orbital cell phone towers" that can mimic any mobile network and can be accessed by completely normal, consumer-grade cell phones. Their network of smallsats will be large enough to bring connectivity to every human being on the planet. With their successful testing, Ubiquitilink is now moving forward into their manufacturing and deployment phase. If you are interested in working with Ubiquitilink, they’re looking for embedded software developers, RF/Electrical engineers, and operations and test engineers.