Deutsche Telekom Tests Satellite Voice Messaging
A joint demonstration with Toyota and Iridium uses low-Earth orbit satellites to expand vehicle IoT coverage.
Deutsche Telekom IoT announced the successful transmission of a voice message over satellite using Iridium NTN Direct in a joint demonstration with Toyota. The test took place during Telekom Satellite Day 2026.
The test message was sent from a Toyota vehicle fitted with a Nordic Semiconductor nRF9151 development board and a Deutsche Telekom IoT SIM. The transmission ran across the operational low-Earth orbit satellite constellation belonging to Iridium Communications and used an artificial intelligence voice codec developed by Fraunhofer IIS that operates at bitrates of 1 kb/s or less.
The trial follows a completed technical integration and a global roaming agreement between Deutsche Telekom IoT and Iridium. Eligible enterprise customers will be able to roam between terrestrial networks and satellites using standards-based NB-IoT devices.
Commercial availability of the Iridium NTN Direct service is planned for the fourth quarter of 2026. Selected European customers are currently testing applications on the satellite network using Deutsche Telekom's Global SIM.
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