AST SpaceMobile (ASTS, Financials) shares climbed 6.8% in pre-market trading Friday after the company received Special Temporary Authority from the Federal Communications Commission to test its satellite-based cellular broadband network in the United States.

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Using AT&T (T, Financials) and Verizon's (VZ, Financials) low-band wireless airwaves, the permission lets AST SpaceMobile's first five BlueBird satellites operate in low Earth orbit. Without hardware or software modifications, the business said the solution enables speech, data, and video apps on unedited devices.

As part of its move toward commercial service, AST SpaceMobile's chief commercial officer, Chris Ivory, said the firm is building five ground-based gateways in the U.S.

The Block 1 BlueBird satellites will provide selected worldwide markets as well as non-continuous broadband service in the United States. With more than 5,600 satellite-based cellular coverage cells, AST SpaceMobile claimed it intends to attain national coverage.

Next-generation Block 2 BlueBird satellites, which will have bigger communication arrays and up to ten times the bandwidth of present versions, are also in development by the corporation. Peak data transmission rates reportedly might reach 120 megabits per second, according to AST SpaceMobile.

AST SpaceMobile attracted more funding for 2024 from AT&T, Verizon, Google (GOOGL, Financials), and Vodafone (VOD, Financials). With about 2.8 billion users, the corporation claimed to have relationships with over 45 mobile network carriers throughout the globe.

AST SpaceMobile said that it wants to increase the commercial and government uses for its satellite broadband service