SoftBank and American startup’s airships as cellular base stations: the U.S. is building a new level of global communications reach

On August 6, it became known that Japan plans to become the first country in the world to use airships as base stations for 4G/5G cellular communications.

The project, implemented by SoftBank in cooperation with the American startup Sceye, envisions placing airships in the stratosphere at an altitude of 20 km, which will make it possible to provide stable connectivity, direct and inexpensive connections to ordinary smartphones, and latency that is half that of Starlink.

SoftBank’s launch of stratospheric platforms for cellular communications in partnership with the American company Sceye marks a transition of global telecommunications infrastructure into a new phase, in which the architecture of connectivity extends beyond orbital systems and ground networks.