Orange partners with AST SpaceMobile (ASTS.US) and Vodafone Group Plc Sponsored ADR (VOD.US) to jointly develop satellite direct communication services.

French telecommunications giant Orange announced on Monday that it has established a partnership with American satellite design and manufacturing company AST SpaceMobile and Satellite Connect Europe to promote the development of mobile satellite direct communication services. Orange plans to start demonstration activities covering voice, SMS, and data in Romania by the end of 2026. Satellite Connect Europe is a joint venture between AST SpaceMobile and Vodafone Group Plc Sponsored ADR, founded in November last year with the aim of establishing a satellite constellation network in Europe. They will set up an operations center in Germany to provide satellite direct-to-smartphone communication applications for commercial and government sectors. Orange CEO Christel Heydemann has been actively advocating for Europe to achieve autonomy in the satellite field and calling for improving the competitiveness of European networks, including the EU's IRIS2 project to compete against rivals like Elon Musk's Starlink and Amazon.com, Inc.'s upcoming low Earth orbit satellite network.