T-Mobile users will upgrade their wireless services via satellite, thanks to the newly announced partnership using the SpaceX star chain constellation.
But don’t expect to start streaming HD video via satellite to your T-Mobile connected device immediately: after a series of SpaceX satellite launches, Starlink’s broadband enhanced beta will not be launched in selected regions until next year.
This will start with SMS, including SMS, MMS and SMS applications. Voice and data coverage will be provided later.
Mike sivert, chief executive officer of T-Mobile, and Elon Musk, chief executive officer of SpaceX, conducted a live demonstration at the Starbase facility of SpaceX in southern Texas today to explain the details behind the transaction.
Siefert said that the partnership requires the establishment of a new network consisting of Starlink satellites that can use T-Mobile’s if spectrum nationwide. He said that the vast majority of smartphones on his network would be compatible with the new satellite + cellular service.
“You can connect to your existing phone,” Sievert promised. He said he hoped to provide Starlink support services for free in the most popular program of T-Mobile. For less popular programs, he said, a monthly fee may be charged.
The hybrid service is designed to be provided anywhere in the mainland of the United States and Hawaii, as well as in Alaska, Puerto Rico, the territorial waters of the United States and parts of the world’s vast oceans. This means that T-Mobile customers can obtain signals in areas that are traditionally inaccessible, including national parks and wilderness areas.
Seaver calls it “the end of the mobile dead zone.”
Musk proposed the idea that even if there is no cell phone tower, people in trouble in remote areas can also contact the outside world. “It will save lives,” he told the crowd.
SpaceX has become the world leader in providing satellite broadband services from low earth orbit. In the past three years, it has launched more than 3000 Starlink satellites, which are manufactured at the SpaceX factory in Redmond, Washington. According to the Starlink statistics page of satellite observer Jonathan McDowell, about 2300 satellites are currently in operation.
Musk said that the new generation of satellites must be equipped with large “extremely advanced” antennas. “This is a difficult problem, which is why it has not been solved before,” he said.
The next generation satellite will be designed to be launched on SpaceX’s giant starship rocket, which is currently under development. Musk said that if this development work encounters obstacles, SpaceX may propose a temporary solution to allow these satellites to be launched on the Falcon 9 rocket.
It is said that Starlink has more than 400000 users worldwide, while T-Mobile, headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, reports that it has 110 million users. The newly announced cooperation may enhance T-Mobile’s competition with Verizon, at & T and other companies in terms of cellular customers, and strengthen the influence of SpaceX when Starlink competes with oneweb and the Kuiper satellite broadband network project that has not yet been launched by Amazon.
The financial details behind the partnership were not immediately disclosed.
Looking to the future, sifert does not rule out the idea that T-Mobile can let Starlink handle the backhaul transmission of its data. “Well, we are open to this and now we are partners,” he said.
Although T-Mobile and SpaceX have made it clear that the new service will be gradually launched from next year, they have formulated a grand vision for what T-Mobile calls “beyond and beyond the coverage”. Sifert invites telecom network providers around the world to cooperate on global connectivity, and T-Mobile promises to provide peer-to-peer roaming to the invited providers.
When musk was asked how the partnership with T-Mobile would be coordinated with his solar system exploration and settlement plan, he went further.
“We really want to install T-Mobile on Mars,” Musk said, and the crowd cheered.