Lynk Global launched a beta of its limited satellite-to-phone service with bmobile Solomon Islands, with the non-terrestrial connectivity player expecting to start commercial availability with players in other locations by the year-end.

The bmobile service is initially available on the island of Makira, with plans to expand across the rest of the Solomon Islands during 2024. This is set to include the Solomon Islands maritime economic exclusion zone, which covers more than 1.6 million kilometres.

Alongside extending mobile coverage, Lynk Global CCO Dan Dooley highlighted its service would “be used to provide back-up services, when natural disasters damage the ground network, to enhance network resilience”.

GSMA Intelligence figures for Q3 place bmobile as the smallest of the two players in the country by connections, with almost 119,000.

Lynk Global noted it is also targeting a service launch later this year in Papua New Guinea with bmobile’s parent company Telikom and “anticipates starting commercial service with many more MNOs globally over the rest of 2023”.

Its current service uses satellites to provide emergency alerts and two-way SMS, with voice and data services earmarked for the future.

Lynk’s CEO Charles Miller will keynote at Mobile World Live‘s Unwrapped event next week – register here.