#coveragechecker.com

Okay this is genuinely kind of wild: your normal phone, no dish, no bulky satellite brick, just… connecting to space when there's no signal.

Vodafone Satellite is gearing up for customer trials in summer 2026, built on AST SpaceMobile's Bluebird satellites and some clever beamforming tech.

They already managed a real video call from a dead zone in rural Wales on an ordinary Android phone back in January 2025. O2's version is already live, so naturally we broke down how the two compare.

Direct to Smartphone tech is not sci-fi anymore, it's just… happening.

Quick one for anyone who's noticed "5G+" on their EE phone and wondered if it's something new: it isn't a separate network or generation, it's EE's branding for 5G Standalone. Most UK 5G today still leans on a 4G core behind the scenes; 5G+ swaps that for an all-5G foundation instead. Nothing changes in how you use your phone, but it can mean faster uploads, better reliability in busy areas, and quicker responsiveness. Also good to know: other UK networks don't use the "5G+" name, even if they're doing similar things technically. We've laid out the full explanation, plain English, no jargon.

So it's been about a year since 5G started rolling out across North Africa, and new data shows the experience is anything but consistent between countries.

The common thread behind the differences? Spectrum allocation. How operators divided up their airwaves seems to matter just as much as whether they launched 5G at all.

2025 is apparently the breakout year for the region's 5G story, with more markets coming online, yet results are still diverging sharply. It's a solid reminder that flipping the switch on a new network is only step one, managing the spectrum behind it is where the real difference gets made.

We've dug into what this means over on the site.

New research worth sitting with: over half of UK children aged 8-16 say they've felt overlooked or left waiting for attention because of their parents' phone use, with scrolling time quietly building up over the summer holidays. Nobody sets out to ignore their kids, it just… happens, one scroll at a time. We've written up the findings on coveragechecker.com. Curious what people think, does this match what you're seeing at home?

A wildfire broke out near Tintwistle in Derbyshire, and the firefighting crews on scene needed a way to communicate in an area with no standard mobile coverage. O2's satellite-based service filled that gap, keeping teams connected while they coordinated their response.

It's a neat reminder that satellite-to-mobile tech is being trialled more and more to support emergency services in rural and hard-to-cover parts of the UK, especially as wildfire incidents become a more regular seasonal concern.

Old tech, new integration, real impact. Got any experience with satellite phones or O2's service? Drop a comment.

MNO - O2 , EE , VodafoneThree

See how a UK mobile operator is doing marketing in a different way, reaching beyond mobile contract conversations into the real lives of its customers. Is this the way forward for mobile marketing campaigns? maybe, love to hear what you think...