South Korea, already one of the best-equipped countries on the planet in terms of fibre connections (and where an estimated 99 per cent of users have 4G or 5G cellular access) is going ahead with its own satellite low Earth orbing broadband system.

Korea’s Economic Daily news says that the South Korean government wants the system up and running by 2035 in time for the ‘6G era’ and is targeting a 3 percent share of the global space connectivity market.

The areas that South Korea still can’t cover properly are the sea and the sky, and that’s exactly where Starlink can dominate relatively quickly, says one observer. “When it comes to sovereignty concerns, the government’s emphasis sounds largely military-driven.”

However, the market is where AST SpaceMobile holds a significant competitive edge, suggests the comment. “Because AST shares low-band mobile spectrum, a jammer would need to target an enormously broad area, making effective jamming practically impossible. As long as local cell towers or gateways aren’t physically destroyed, the service is extremely difficult to shut down.”

What Korea is seemingly targeting is a sovereign LEO launch and build which is openly aimed at cutting reliance on Starlink. The state research institute ETRI reportedly puts the need at 200+ satellites for real time nationwide service. Dual use, civil and military, with AI baked in. Same logic driving China’s GuoWang, the EU’s IRIS2 as well as Taiwan’s half government network.

A comment from Leo Capital said: “What matters for AST is who’s already holding the ground in Korea, and it isn’t AST. Hanwha Systems is OneWeb’s Korean distributor and the exclusive supplier of its LEO network to the Korean military through 2030. KT SAT runs OneWeb service too. Korea cleared Starlink and OneWeb in 2025. Samsung handles the NTN chipset side. The map is already crowded.”

However, Leo Capital added: “AST’s partner list is deep now. Nearly 60 operators, over 3 billion subscribers. Vodafone, AT&T, Verizon, Rakuten, Orange, Telefonica, stc, Bell, Telus and more. What’s missing: SK Telecom, KT, LG Uplus. No Korean carrier on the list. Korea is open space and an opportunity for AST right now.”

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Categories: Blogs, Broadband, Inside Satellite, Satellite

Tags: AST SpaceMobile, LEO, OneWeb, South Korea, starlink