Long time Boingo Wireless executive Derek Peterson (pictured) revealed on LinkedIn he has joined AST SpaceMobile as CTO, Enterprise & Platforms while also leading the satellite player’s CIO and CSO functions.

Peterson was at Boingo Wireless for 15 years, most recently as CTO Emeritus and strategic advisor after serving as CTO, CIO, COO, CSO and CPO at the wireless company for over 14 years.

In his new role at AST, he will lead enterprise IT, platforms, infrastructure, corporate networks and cybersecurity, including the CIO and CSO functions, and building the US software team while driving Wi-Fi and OpenRoaming integration.

“Connecting a regular phone straight to a satellite is the piece that completes the convergence picture,” he stated on LinkedIn. “I’ve spent my career chasing seamless connectivity, and I’m excited to join an innovative team that’s building it from space

AST SpaceMobile previously projected 45 to 60 of its next-generation satellites would launch this year for its direct-to-device service but is now targeting having approximately 45 in orbit by early 2027.

The delay was revealed in a Securities and Exchange Commission regulatory filing tied to a $1 billion notes offering and followed a serious setback to one of its two main launch partners.

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The National Basketball Association (NBA), Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and AT&T revealed the launch of the fourth generation of the High-Speed Arena Network (HSAN), the latest iteration of the leagues’ connectivity platform built to transport live game content, highlights, replays, in-arena programming and stats to fans and business partners.

With more than 68,000 miles of the operator’s fibre and network infrastructure, the HSAN will be built to transport more than 118 concurrent, high-quality, low-latency streams per game, supporting millions of hours of basketball consumption during the 2027-28 NBA season.

AT&T chief marketing and growth officer Kellyn Smith Kenny stated fans consume basketball across live broadcasts, replays, highlights, social media and NBA digital platforms. She added the companies were building the connectivity needed to distribute game content quickly and reliably, helping viewers stay connected to key moments wherever they watch.

AT&T, the NBA and the WNBA also extended their longstanding marketing partnership, continuing the operator role as the leagues’ Official Connectivity Partner, building on a relationship which began in 2018. The extension also continues AT&T’s partnership with the NBA G League, USA Basketball and NBA Take-Two Media.

As part of the marketing partnership, AT&T and the NBA will create new fan touchpoints across content and retail activations and give them more opportunities to engage with NBA stars and AT&T athletes. The operator will also continue to connect fans with their favourite teams and players through its partnerships with the Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks, Miami Heat and LA Clippers.

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Interview: Seven months after its launch at MWC Barcelona 2026, the Linux Foundation’s OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation has added major technology companies and issued the second version of its open-source RAN software.

Dr Tom Rondeau (pictured below), principal director of the US Department of War’s FutureG programme, told Mobile World Live the initiative is working to a six month release cadence. The first release arrived in April, followed by the second version on 8 October.

OCUDU, short for Open Centralised Unit Distributed Unit, hosts open-source software for the RAN’s central and distributed units.

When the foundation launched, its members included AMD, AT&T, Ericsson, Nokia, Nvidia, SoftBank Corp and Verizon. FutureG and the US National Spectrum Consortium agreed to back it for three years with funds to be appropriated by Congress.

April release
Rondeau said the April release was mainly a rebuild. Software Radio Systems (SRS) re-architected its RAN code base, which dates back to the LTE-era, so a wider open-source community could work on it. He noted much of the cybersecurity benefit comes from making the code readable and clean.

“What that included though, aside from just good coding practices, was a basic 5G RAN that you could stand up,” he said. “A fundamental 5G with no bells and whistles necessarily but you could make a call across it, and you could have a data connection usually from standard 5G UEs”.

“That was important just as a proof of concept to get the basic bones of a 5G system out there and get people looking at the code and working with it,” he added.

It also included a significant number of interfaces based both on 3GPP and O-RAN Alliance specifications.

Rondeau said feedback on the first release has been positive, with developers describing the code as easy to use, fast and well documented. He added people have been “coming out of the woodwork” to say they have used OCUDU successfully.

October release
The latest version focuses on radio performance, led by beamforming and more advanced multi-antenna support. It also added work on non-public networks, resilience upgrades, bug fixes and support for more powerful phased-array radio units.

Rondeau said developers have repeatedly asked whether OCUDU can support non-terrestrial networks (NTN). The October release incorporated the 3GPP’s Release 17 NTN specification, drawing on SRS’ experience in the area and giving developers a platform for exploring space-based communications.

Membership growth
Samsung joined as a premier member in April, followed by Qualcomm in May and Intel in August, taking the group to 12 premier members and 34 general ones.

The premier members sit on the governing board and help drive the roadmap. Day-to-day, though, most of the companies still build their own features or are integrating OCUDU with their own products or stacks.

Genuine collaborative development, Rondeau said, is “a cultural thing that needs to be continuously worked on”. He stated the Linux Foundation had told his department OCUDU was its third-fastest-growing project.

Roadmap
Rondeau said the organisation is striving for at “least one real champion” to say it has integrated OCUDU into its products and can use it in commercial release.

“A year from now may be a little bit early,” he acknowledged. Integration in prototypes or test facilities would count, and he has heard “good rumours” about companies moving aggressively on their own.

A separate contract with Cohere Technologies, awarded by Rondeau’s office, offers another test. The goal is to use OCUDU to set up a call over the standard 5G NR waveform, then negotiate a switch to another waveform for the data plane.

In Cohere’s case that is Zac-Orthogonal Time Frequency and Space (OTFS), which lets the department test sensing and communications together. It will be built around an OCUDU-based RAN stack, which Rondeau called a major proof of concept for Cohere and for OCUDU as the core software of a working RAN.

That contract runs for two years, with completion expected around the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and intermediate deliverables along the way. It will not be public in the way OCUDU is but Cohere has committed to releasing the interfaces back into the project.

The work also feeds into integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) which Rondeau sees as one leg of 6G alongside connectivity and edge AI compute.

Rondeau said sensing is critical to the US Department of War because it could close capability gaps and reduce the number of specialised sensors it needs to carry or deploy.

He added the US must compete with authoritarian adversaries which may take different approaches to how ISAC standards and technologies govern data management, security, processing and access.

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Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin outlined a plan to spend $330 million on extensive upgrades to its launch facilities in the US state of Florida to support multiple flights per week by the end of the decade. 

Blue Origin revealed it will add two additional launch and landing pads for its New Glenn rockets while also boosting its second stage manufacturing capabilities. Ian Richardson, Blue Origin’s SVP of operations, stated in a blog the expansion will be completed by the middle of 2027.

“These investments are centred on one goal: building the capacity to support more missions, more reliably, and more efficiently,” he said. “As we look ahead, this infrastructure is designed to support multiple flights per week by the end of the decade.”

The upgrades also include a new customer integration facility with the US Space Force at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida to give it “the ability to prepare multiple missions at once”.

Richardson noted the company has invested more than $3 billion in facilities and infrastructure across the state with more than 5,000 employees.

Blue Origin is seeking to ramp up the cadence of its rocket launches to better compete against Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Currently, Blue Origin has 396 LEO birds in orbit while SpaceX has approximately 11,150 Starlink satellites.

While SpaceX and Blue Origin use their rockets to launch satellites from other companies, CNBC reported the former has stopped commercial rides on its Falcon 9 rocket to support its larger Starship model.

Blue Origin suffered a setback in May when one of its New Glenn rockets exploded on the Florida launch pad. In July, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp outlined a plan to rebuild its launch pad with a new configuration as it works toward returning its New Glenn rocket to flight before the end of 2026.

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Mercedes-Benz expanded its partnership with Nvidia to develop driver assistance and automated driving systems based on the carmaker’s MB.OS platform and the chip company’s computing technology and software.

The agreement combines Mercedes-Benz engineering and its MB.OS operating system with Nvidia’s Hyperion computing and sensor architecture, Alpamayo driving software and Halos safety system.

Mercedes CTO Jorg Burzer hailed Nvidia as its “most important strategic partner in automated driving”, describing the urban point-to-point assistance system the two built as the first of its kind from Mercedes for Western markets.

He added the extension is a milestone built on years of mutual trust, while stressing customers will still expect the safety standards the brand is known for.

Ali Kani, VP of automotive at Nvidia, said accelerated computing could help vehicles interpret their surroundings and respond to complex driving situations. He added the companies aim to make autonomous driving suitable for everyday use.

MB.OS will manage driving functions and over-the-air updates alongside Nvidia’s Hyperion in-vehicle computing platform. Alpamayo will provide software for urban point-to-point assistance, active safety and automated parking, while Halos will add a safety layer alongside Mercedes-Benz’s own systems.

The companies noted the technologies will also support future SAE Level 4 applications, including robolimousines.

Mercedes-Benz also uses Nvidia technology for vehicle-engineering simulations and in its MO360 digital-production platform, covering virtual planning and AI applications. The companies plan to expand the work across the carmaker’s global production network.

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