Sateliot, a 5G narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) satellite wholesaler connecting standard IoT devices, has announced the launch of its first functional low-Earth orbit (LEO) nanosatellite set for the first quarter of 2023 on SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. The launch echoes a long line of pushes to reinforce and expand networks to remote areas through Satellite technology.

In recent months, SpaceX partnered with T-Mobile, fellow satellite company Lynk claimed to have pioneered the movement, and Microsoft Azure sought out partners to scale the satellite ecosystem for private networks in remote and edge locations. The rising use cases are making it clear: there is a new emerging race to space.

“Today’s satellite devices all belong to proprietary operators and often cost $500 or more, limiting access for massive applications,” Sateliot stated in the release. Following its partnership with AWS to build the virtualized 5G core, Sateliot aims to broaden its applications to provide coverage for any 3GPP Release-17 standard-compliant IoT device, regardless of the operator.

Instead of a packaged service, Sateliot acts as a “coverage extender” for operators through a “single roaming agreement,” Sateliot CEO and Founder Jaume Sanpera told SDxCentral. "We target 1$ per month per device for the satellite connectivity to be paid by the final user, typically to an MNO."

He touts the fully realized constellation would provide “almost real-time service” for even more latency-demanding parts of the IoT market.

“A large part of the IoT market is by itself delay tolerant, therefore the first market that is demanding Sateliot service is happy to have latencies,” Sanpera explained.

Thus far, the company has signed agreements with telco operators and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) in over 50 countries, according to Sanpera. But the only publicly available partner currently available is Telefónica.

The company’s lofty roadmap is to establish a “full constellation” of 256 satellites by 2025, despite plans to only launch four additional satellites in 2023.

Sanpera added that the company is signing agreements with global non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to offer free-of-charge connectivity related to environmental and social projects. “Such a revolution can not only be business driven,” he said.

“Since the final equipment – the device needed to connect to satellite[s] – already exists [and] is a standard already used by IoT companies ... this means that the full ecosystem of solutions is there, including in first response, natural disasters,” Sanpera said.

With the established pieces and standards of the ecosystem in place, Sanpera believes the satellite-based networks are going to be “democratized and massive.”