The announcement was made within the framework of Satellite 2025. The project is based on the companies' capacity in the S and L bands, and would allow global roaming between regional mobile operators for their users outside of cellular coverage.
For the initial prototype, Viasat and Space42 (the latter based in the United Arab Emirates) will share financing.
In a statement, Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg considered the agreement as "an important step in our strategy of capital-efficient growth to build a powerful ecosystem of partners dedicated to future innovation in space, based on open 5G standards and a scalable architecture."