>BARCELONA, Feb 27 (Reuters) - The moon will get its first mobile phone 
>network next year, enabling high-definition streaming from the lunar 
>landscape back to earth, part of a project to back the first privately 
>funded moon mission.
>
>Vodafone Germany, network equipment maker Nokia and carmaker Audi said 
>on Tuesday they were working together to support the mission, 50 years 
>after the first NASA astronauts walked on the moon.
>
>Vodafone said it had appointed Nokia as its technology partner to 
>develop a space-grade network which would be a small piece of hardware 
>weighing less than a bag of sugar.
>
>The companies are working with Berlin-based company PTScientists on the 
>project, with a launch scheduled in 2019 from Cape Canaveral on a 
>SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Vodafone said.
>
>"This project involves a radically innovative approach to the 
>development of mobile network infrastructure," Vodafone Germany Chief 
>Executive Hannes Ametsreiter said.
>
>One executive involved said the decision to build a 4G network rather a 
>state-of-the-art 5G network was taken because the next generation 
>networks remain in the testing and trial stage and are not stable 
>enough to ensure they would work from the lunar surface.
>
>(Reporting by Paul Sandle and Eric Auchard. Editing by Jane Merriman) 




Source: Moon-net Digest, Vol 354, Issue 13