Comment T-Mobile will use SpaceX satellites to extend the carrier’s coverage to remote parts of the United States, the companies said Thursday. The partnership will allow T-Mobile, the second largest wireless carrier in the United States, to leverage SpaceX’s constellation of Starlink satellites to provide service to customers in areas without cell towers. T-Mobile, based in Bellevue, Wash., said more than 500,000 square miles of the United States have no cell coverage. “This partnership is the end of dead zones for mobile devices,” T-Mobile CEO Mike Siewert said at a news conference Thursday with SpaceX founder Elon Musk. “This is important for safety, it’s important for contact with the people we love, and it’s important for people in rural areas.” T-Mobile will begin using Starlink satellites to test messaging services in remote areas by the end of next year before expanding to data and voice coverage, Sievert said. He expects the service to be included in T-Mobile’s most popular plans at no extra cost. Musk said the satellite service was intended to complement existing networks, not replace them. SpaceX also wants to work with other carriers around the world to make the service available outside the United States, he said. In March, SpaceX gave Ukraine access to Starlink satellites to prevent massive internet outages after the Russian invasion. “We’ve all read about someone who hiked, got lost, or died of thirst or exposure,” Musk said. “You could be stuck on a desert island talking to a basketball and now you can call for help.” SpaceX founder Elon Musk said on August 25 that the new cellular service with T-Mobile will use Starlink satellites and work with phones currently on the market. (Video: SpaceX) Cell phones that work on T-Mobile will be able to access SpaceX’s next-generation Starlink V2 satellites, which are set to launch next year. The satellites will be equipped with huge antennas and will be able to fully mimic a cell tower. If no local coverage is available, the phones will automatically connect to satellites traveling overhead at 17,000 miles per hour. The satellites will offer two to four megabits per second of bandwidth, shared among customers in a cell zone, Musk said, or the equivalent of up to 2,000 voice calls and hundreds of thousands of text messages. The service will also keep users connected in the event of a massive cell tower outage. Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission rejected SpaceX’s bid for nearly $1 billion in subsidies to provide satellite Internet to rural customers. The commission said it was concerned that SpaceX’s $600 satellite dishes would be too expensive for some customers and that the company “failed to demonstrate that providers could deliver the service it promised.” Disrupted by SpaceX, ULA was in “serious trouble.” Now he is on his way back. The FCC did not immediately return a request for comment late Thursday on the planned partnership. The partnership between SpaceX and T-Mobile also appears to allow rural customers to access Internet service with the hardware already in their pocket. “It really solves coverage problems in areas that can’t be served on the ground and will save lives when people need help and rescue,” said Avi Greengart, chief analyst at Techsponential, a research firm. “It will keep people living off the grid affordable and provide a level of redundancy when the grid on the ground goes down.” Chris Velazco in San Francisco contributed to this report.
