How will satellite broadband come straight to ordinary phones in Brazil — and how is AST SpaceMobile different from Starlink?

Brazil’s Anatel has authorised AST SpaceMobile to deliver voice, data, and video from satellites to unmodified smartphones via four regional operators, using 30 MHz of S-band spectrum plus secondary 700 MHz access. Here is how the service is meant to work, who it is for, and how its approach differs from Starlink Direct to Cell.

Short answer: Brazil’s telecom regulator Anatel has authorised AST SpaceMobile to beam broadband straight from satellites to ordinary, unmodified smartphones — voice, data, and video — using spectrum held with four regional Brazilian operators. It is a coverage layer for farms, highways, and rural areas where towers do not reach, designed to complement ground networks, not replace them. Why it matters: a phone expects a tower a few kilometres away, so a satellite service must do the tower’s job from orbit — big antennas, careful power budgets, and spectrum the phone already understands.

Anatel’s authorisation gives AST 15+15 MHz of S-band spectrum (30 MHz total), plus secondary use of up to 10+10 MHz in the 700 MHz band through its operator partners, with ground infrastructure to be built in Brazil and revenue shared with operators.1. The phone does not change. The service is designed for standard smartphones — no special handset, dish, or app — because the satellite side adapts to the phone, not the other way round.2.

The spectrum is the licence to operate. S-band carries the main service; the 700 MHz secondary allocation adds capacity where operators allow it. Without those grants, the satellites have nothing legal to transmit on.3.

It fills gaps, it does not fight towers. A city tower serves thousands of phones from metres away; a satellite serves a whole region thinly. Expect AST where there is no signal today — farms, highways, remote work sites.4.

How Starlink’s approach differs. SpaceX’s Direct to Cell likewise targets ordinary phones through partner carriers, but it is built on Starlink’s very large existing low-orbit fleet and its partners’ own spectrum arrangements, rolling out service in stages. AST is building a smaller, purpose-built broadband constellation and, in Brazil, operating through four regional operators on a revenue-share model.

Different fleets, different spectrum deals, same goal: your phone talking to space when no tower can hear it.Pro tip: Judge any satellite-to-phone service by its day-one coverage map and its carrier partners — spectrum paperwork like this Anatel grant decides whether service ever reaches your phone.Ad’s take: The tower is becoming optional geography. Deals like this one — spectrum, partners, ground stations — are what turn a satellite demo into a service a farmer can actually buy.