At a glance
- Their new joint venture expects about $1 billion from the communications ministry.
- Rakuten AST was selected under the Japan Low Earth Orbit Satellite Communications Project (J-LEO), run by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
- AST SpaceMobile's satellites would carry high-speed internet to smartphone users in Japan.
Rakuten and AST SpaceMobile won a Japanese government tender to build a direct-to-device satellite network. Their new joint venture expects about $1 billion from the communications ministry.
Rakuten AST was selected under the Japan Low Earth Orbit Satellite Communications Project (J-LEO), run by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
AST SpaceMobile's satellites would carry high-speed internet to smartphone users in Japan. The ministry funds are expected to support deployment of a Japanese-flagged mid-band satellite constellation, with domestic operations due to begin in early 2029. The venture also plans to work with AST to serve its global customers.
The public funding is expected ahead of construction, with Rakuten Mobile's smartphone customers as the named users in Japan. The open diligence question is how Japanese capacity stays protected if AST's launch schedule slips, because the same satellites are also expected to serve AST's global customers.
Rakuten's ties to AST date to 2020, when the two signed a commercial agreement to develop connectivity compatible with Rakuten's Japanese mobile network. That year Rakuten also joined Vodafone as a lead investor in what was then AST & Science, in a round that brought the company's total capital to $128 million, Data Center Dynamics reported. Rakuten is the sole major Japanese operator working with AST. KDDI, SoftBank and NTT DoCoMo favor SpaceX for their direct-to-device efforts.
Reported by the Data centers & fiber desk from Data Center Dynamics. Published . Corrections