The trial was end-to-end and demonstrated services such as short messages and voice services, both with satisfactory performances. The trial included a comprehensive set of tests of the direct connection between the mobile phone and the satellite, which supports a network with ubiquitous connectivity, more use cases, highly integrated industry chains and low O&M costs.
The trial was based on the 3GPP R17 and on a network architecture using high-orbit satellites for transparent forwarding to implement end-to-end link interconnection among terminals, satellites, terrestrial gateways, base stations, core networks and servers.
The L-band satellite and terrestrial gateways, located between the NTN terminal and the base station, were responsible for air-interface message transmission. The terrestrial gateways were interconnected with the 5G NTN base station. The terminal was connected to the terrestrial core network and service platform through the satellite, gateways and NTN base station in turn to implement end-to-end service interconnection.