04 May 2023

Satellite-direct-to-standard-phone company Lynk Global has signed a commercial contract with Telecel Group in Africa to provide services to Vodafone Ghana’s subscribers.

The contract has the potential to provide mobile coverage to 100% of Ghana’s 31 million citizens using Lynk’s ‘cell towers in space.’ According to Lynk, it will enable Telecel Group to offer geographic coverage to over 6 million Vodafone Ghana subscribers and will be utilized for extending rural coverage.

“It will also include Maritime Economic Zone, as a backup to ensure service resilience, continuity of IoT devices, and as a terrestrial tower replacement for underperforming economical or technical towers,” said the company in a statement.

“This agreement extends Lynk’s leadership in the satellite-direct-to-standard-phone category in Africa and is an important milestone as interest in the category continues to heat up,” said Lynk Global CEO Charles Miller.

Vodafone Ghana CEO Patricia Obo-Nai said that the partnership provided the opportunity to connect Ghanaians and accelerate the benefits that connectivity offers in health, education, and job creation, especially for women and the youth.

Lynk Global is currently testing satellite direct-to-standard-mobile-phone services in more than a dozen countries, and claims that it is the only company in the world to have successfully sent and received text messages to and from space via unmodified standard mobile devices such as smart phones.