AT&T has thrown its hat into the satellite-based broadband communication frenzy, touting plans to offer initial access to its service during the first half of 2026, a service that will ride AST SapceMobile’s recent successful launch of its latest BlueBird communications array into low-Earth orbit (LEO).

AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 6 was launched into orbit from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, on December 23. The BlueBird 6 The unit spans nearly 2,400 square feet, which is three-times larger than AST SpaceMobile’s previous BlueBird models and is claimed to be “the largest commercial communications array ever deployed in low-Earth orbit.”

BlueBird 6, like the previous models, is designed to use traditional cellular spectrum that allows it to support already released cellular devices. AST SpaceMobile has struck deals with a handful of operators to use parts of their cellular spectrum and lease capacity on the satellite units.

One of those is AT&T, which struck a long-term spectrum lease agreement with AST SpaceMobile in early 2023. The carrier has since conducted a handful of 4G LTE and 5G voice and data transmission tests with AST SpaceMobile.

Robert Walters, SVP of network planning, construction, and engineering at AT&T, in a blog post touted that the latest AST SpaceMobile launch as “bringing us one step closer to making broadband satellite connectivity to our customers.”

“All these milestones are building toward something extraordinary: we plan to offer a select number of AT&T customers and public safety on FirstNet beta satellite service in the first half of next year, with commercial launch to follow,” Walters wrote.

Satellite service plans accelerate

AT&T’s move comes on the heels of Verizon announcing its own AST SpaceMobile-based commercial satellite service plans. The carrier, which has signed spectrum and investment deals with AST SpaceMobile, plans to begin offering commercial services in 2026.

Both carriers have pledged some of their 850 MHz spectrum resources to their respective services, which will allow currently deployed devices to communication with the satellite constellation. AST SpaceMobile has said that those spectrum assets when combined with its own L-band holdings can provide network speeds of up to 120 Mb/s.

The latest launch and commercial plans are pitted against an aggressive play by telecom operator rival T-Mobile US, which has partnered with SpaceX to support satellite-based communication services. Those plans rely on SpaceX’s hundreds of cellular-enabled LEO satellites using T-Mobile US’ 2.5 GHz spectrum.

SpaceX also recently spent $20 billion to acquire spectrum licenses from EchoStar that could power wholesale services. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also recently hinted the company could offer its own branded commercial communication service.

AT&T CEO unimpressed

AT&T CEO John Stankey recently downplayed that challenge, telling an investor conference audience that while he continues to think there is a place for a space-based communication service, physics will prevent such a venture from being able to support a direct competitor.

Stankey specifically pointed to limitations with “upstream bandwidth,” which “becomes more important in the AI dynamic.”

“It’s inherently going to be a more fragile upstream uplink than what you're going to get in a terrestrial network that gets on fiber really quickly,” Stankey said of a satellite upstream connection. “The faster you can get something on fiber, the more robust that upstream uplink is going to be, and the more low-band spectrum you have to do that, the more robust that upstream link is going to be. Satellite doesn't have those things.”

Stankey built on that spectrum notion by stating AT&T and its direct rivals T-Mobile US and Verizon each have access to approximately 300 megahertz of spectrum that can be transmitted from each cell site, which is more than triple the amount of spectrum the newly spectrum filled SpaceX can provide from its satellite constellation.

“If you think about it, you get 80 megahertz you get to put on a spot beam that has a radius that is dramatically larger than a cell site – you know, two-and-a-half miles, two miles for a cell site, you're talking about a spot beam right now that's probably close to 20 miles, and you're taking 80 megahertz and you're putting over that period, you have a weaker uplink. That's a hard putt to be a like-to-like replacement,” Stankey said.

A recent Analysys Mason report noted that Starlink’s constellation could provide maximum downlink capacity per beam of 18.3 Mb/s using five megahertz of spectrum “under optimal conditions.”

“This capacity needs to be shared between all the users under the same beam, which typically is fairly geographically spread (~50 km diameter),” the report noted.