Rogers Communications announces satellite-direct-to-phone deal with Lynk Global

Canada-based cellular carrier Rogers Communications recently announced a deal with Lynk Global to provide satellite-direct-to-phone service beginning next year that is designed to ensure that Rogers subscribers maintain communications throughout the country, even when they are outside terrestrial-network coverage.

Lynk Global CEO Charles Miller said that his company has similar agreements with other carriers around the globe, but Rogers is the largest one to announce it publicly to date.

“It’s the first big deal with an MNO [mobile network operator] that we’ve been able to announce,” Miller said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “Lynk is going to solve a problem that there’s no other way to solve, which is to allow every Canadian to be covered across all of Canada. We’re going to provide emergency services, messaging and instant backup, if the [Rogers terrestrial] network goes down.

“Every Canadian should be able to trust that they’re going to be able to stay connected, if there’s an emergency. Lynk provides that redundancy and resiliency for saving lives in Canada, and Rogers wants that.”

Miller said that the agreement calls for Lynk to begin augmenting the Rogers Communications cellular service next year, but noted that “it’s up to Rogers to decide when in 2024” that the Lynk service will be offered to Rogers’ 14 million customers. Rogers has about “one out of every three Canadians” as a subscriber, according to Miller.

Rogers issued a press release about the deal, noting that Lynk connectivity initially will let subscribers send and receive SMS texts on existing unmodified smartphones. As Lynk’s low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite constellation matures in future, Lynk connectivity will support voice and data applications.

“From underground transit systems in Canada’s largest cities, to cell towers in space covering Northern communities, Rogers is leading to bring Canadians the biggest and best wireless networks across the country, to keep them connected and safe,” Rogers President and CEO Tony Staffieri said in a prepared statement. “Emergencies do not wait, and that is one of the reasons why we are investing to make sure Canadians can always reach 911 from anywhere in Canada.”

Lynk is one of the leading companies in the satellite-direct-to-phone space, which is among the most closely monitored technical arenas in the telecom industry. Lynk’s LEO satellites’ ability to act as a “cell tower in space” means satellite connectivity—even broadband applications—can be supported on unmodified smart devices, which perceive the LEO satellites as another roaming partner.

With LEO satellites being about 98% closer to the Earth’s surface than a GEO satellite, the latency associated with traditional services that leverage satellite for backhaul should not be an issue, Miller said. In fact, only 4 milliseconds of latency should be introduced to signals transmitted between a cellular device and one of Lynk’s LEO satellites—a figure that might climb to 20 milliseconds, if all ground-station processing is included, he said.

Miller said that Lynk currently has three LEO satellites in orbit, with plans to launch three more in October and another six in January 2024, meaning there would be at least 12 satellites in the constellation when Rogers begins offering Lynk connectivity that supports texting next year.

Lynk hopes to “ramp up” its satellite deployments beginning in the spring of 2024, when the company hopes to begin deploying six satellites per month, Miller said, noting that “there’s some uncertainty on that schedule.”

If Lynk can meet this planned deployment pace, “we’ll get to what we call global seamless messaging in Canada” by the end of 2024, Miller said. With “seamless messaging,” a user only would have connectivity with a Lynk periodically, but the connection would occur frequently enough that a text message could be compiled and the user could put the device in his/her pocket without worrying that the connection might time out.

Lynk hopes to continue deploying six satellites per month throughout 2025, which should allow the LEO constellation to grow enough to support “continuous” coverage throughout Canada by the end of 2025, Miller said. With “continuous” coverage, Rogers’ subscribers in Canada would be able to connect to a Lynk satellite at all times when outdoors, according to Miller. At this point, the Lynk constellation would be significantly more reliable and have the capacity to support more bandwidth-intensive and latency-sensitive applications, he said.

“When we get to the continuous service, we can turn on voice and broadband,” Miller said, again noting the potential unpredictability of satellite launch schedules.

Rogers “has conducted successful technical tests with Lynk satellites in remote British Columbia and will start testing in Atlantic Canada,” according to the carrier’s press release.

Lisa Beare, minister of citizens’ services in British Columbia (B.C.), said she believes the Rogers-Lynk initiative fits well into the government’s efforts to provide reliable communications in the province.

“Improving cellular service availability is vital to enhancing public safety for people living in and travelling through remote and rural parts of B.C. and across Canada where there is no network access,” Beare said in a prepared statement. “This initiative builds on our government’s work to expand reliable connectivity and cellular coverage along highways for emergency communications services that will help keep people safe and improve emergency responses.

“When complete, this added and innovative approach to bring services to the hardest to reach areas of our province will increase the safety of people and first responders in B.C. and throughout Canada.”