Verizon and AST SpaceMobile have a $100 million deal for satellite cellular service

Verizon’s inked a deal with satellite broadband provider AST SpaceMobile to help fill customers’ coverage gaps when they travel outside the reach of terrestrial cell towers. The company is committing $100 million in a new deal connecting AST’s satellite network to mobile phones using the 850 Mhz band.

AST SpaceMobile founder and CEO Abel Avellan is quoted saying the arrangement with Verizon will enable the company “to target 100 percent coverage of the continental United States.” AST SpaceMobile demonstrated “the ‘first ever’ 5G connection between an unmodified smartphone and a satellite in space” last year with a phone call from a wireless dead zone in Hawaii.