Yes, again, Starlink….Last week, Starlink partner, US cellular operator T-Mobile, anounced the first succesfull test of WEA (Wireless Emergency Alert) via satellite. The test was to demonstrate that Starlink satellites can be used to send emergency notfications to the ground that can be received by regular cell phones. In the demonstration, an emergency notification was transmitted to one of the 175 5G Starlink enabled satellites and then forwarded to the ground in a few seconds where it was pucked up by a non modified LTE phone (5G phone).
This demonstration is in fact the easy part of 5G NTN by satellite: transmitting data from satellites to smartphones. The other way around is more complicated and requires modifications on the smartphone (usually brought by the latest chips).
Also, similar services are already available. For example,emergency notification via cellualr phones has been implemebted by operators and is already widely used to send messages to cell phones in a certain area to notify for thunder storms, heavy rains, forest fires, etc… Of course, this requires a terrestrial network to be available and this is where satellite comes in. In many emergency situations, cell networks may be out and satellite is the only viable option. The European navigation system Galileo implements such a feature: it is called Galile EWS (Emergency Warning Service) and allows every Galileo enable smartphone (most of recent phones as a matter of fact) to receive specific alert messages. EWS will be made avialble to EU authorities.
While other 5G NTN satellite projects focus on sending messages from smartphones to satellites, this demonstration is a first for a broadcast application which is more focused on governmental users.