Satellite Phones for the Masses

According to this article on the Yomiuri, plans to launch a satellite to create an emergency cell phone relay station in space were announced by the Japanese Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry last week. The stationary orbital satellite with an antenna more than twice the size of any existing satellite antenna, would be used to secure mobile phone connections when ground base relay stations have been knocked out in an earthquake or other natural disasters. The ministry hopes to have the system running by the end of fiscal 2015.

Cell phones that use communications satellites are already in use, but the large size of the equipment for sending and receiving signals restricts it to users with special handsets. For an average-sized cell phone handset to use a satellite phone service, the antenna would have to be more than twice the size of the largest existing communications satellite–the test satellite Kiku No. 8, launched in December by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency that has an antenna 19 meters in diameter.

Considering the costs involved, ¥2bln request for fiscal 2008 alone, it might be reasonable for them to explore the potential of working with MobaHo!.