TAMPA, Fla. — Spain’s Sateliot says it has achieved the first narrowband connection from a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite to a commercial Internet of Things (IoT) device built to global 5G standards known as 3GPP Release 17.

The startup said Oct. 7 it sent data from one of its four operational LEO satellites to an nRF9151, a low-power cellular module from Norway’s Nordic Semiconductor that is typically used in sensors for tracking or monitoring, via the same network protocols as a regular mobile network.

“For the first time, a LEO satellite under 3GPP Release 17 has successfully connected directly to a commercial IoT cellular device,” Sateliot chief technology officer Marco Guadalupi told SpaceNews .

“This device was built in accordance with 3GPP Release 17 [non-terrestrial network (

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