Roughly half of Brazil’s federal and state highway network and two thirds of its agricultural land have no 4G or 5G coverage, a connectivity deficit that satellite broadband companies are now racing to fill.
AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ: ASTS), the Midland, Texas-based firm building a space-based cellular broadband network, has taken its most concrete steps yet toward serving Brazil’s more than 210 million people.
Brazil’s telecommunications regulator, Anatel, has granted the company authorization to use 30 MHz of S-band spectrum, structured as 15+15 MHz, for planned commercial satellite broadband services across the country.
Anatel also cleared the secondary use of spectrum in the 700 MHz band, enabling AST SpaceMobile to access up to 20 MHz of additional capacity through agreements it has signed with four regional mobile network operators.
Together, the two spectrum resources give the company complementary frequency layers designed to extend voice calls, broadband data, and video streaming directly to standard, unmodified smartphones throughout Brazil.
Founder, Chairman and CEO Abel Avellan framed the effort as more than a commercial rollout, saying: “Brazil’s ambition for connectivity matches the scale of the country. We are bringing together the spectrum, operator relationships and ground infrastructure to deliver a third layer of connectivity across Brazil.”
Avellan added that the ultimate aim is to “give every mobile subscriber a path to cellular broadband from space and enable operators to fulfill the promise of coverage wherever people live, work and travel.”
Beyond spectrum, the company has outlined plans to build four satellite gateway facilities inside Brazil, which will link its BlueBird low-Earth-orbit satellites with participating mobile operators’ terrestrial networks.
BlueBird satellites are described by the company as the largest ever deployed in low Earth orbit, backed by a portfolio of more than 3,900 patent and patent-pending claims.
The Brazilian push extends an already broad global footprint: AST SpaceMobile counts more than 60 mobile network operator partners worldwide, whose combined subscriber bases exceed three billion people.
Brazil itself represents a particularly large addressable market, with over 200 million active handset lines spread across a territory of roughly 8.5 million square kilometers.
The four new regional operator agreements complement AST SpaceMobile’s existing Brazilian carrier relationships and are intended to extend satellite coverage into areas where terrestrial infrastructure does not reach.
Latin America’s largest economy has long struggled with the economics of building ground-based towers across its vast interior, making space-based solutions an increasingly attractive policy and commercial proposition.
Service rollout remains contingent on continued satellite capacity deployment, completion of ground infrastructure, regulatory authorizations, device compatibility, and finalized commercial arrangements with participating operators.
