Iridium Begins On-Air Trials of Standards-Based NB-IoT Satellite Service

Iridium has begun on-air trials of NTN Direct, its NB-IoT satellite service, ahead of a beta launch during 2026 and commercial service after that. The service is positioned as a global, standards-based NB-IoT and direct-to-device non-terrestrial network.

The phrase doing the work there is standards-based. Satellite IoT has existed for decades, but almost always through proprietary modems, proprietary protocols and a separate commercial relationship from terrestrial connectivity, which meant a device designed for satellite was a different device. Building on 3GPP NB-IoT means the same module and the same SIM can use whichever is available.

For deployments spanning coverage gaps — cargo in transit, remote utility monitoring, agricultural sensing — that changes the design from two products into one with a fallback path. The caveats are the ordinary ones for pre-commercial services: trials are not availability, and the economics of satellite data have historically been the constraint rather than the technology.