SpaceX and T-Mobile have achieved a significant milestone by sending and receiving the first text messages via T-Mobile using SpaceX’s D2D (direct-to-device) Starlink satellites.
Launched just over a week ago, this project aims to provide satellite internet connectivity to regular cell phones, enabling T-Mobile customers to stay online even in areas with no terrestrial coverage.
The collaboration between SpaceX and T-Mobile was first revealed in August 2022. T-Mobile plans to publicly launch text services with SpaceX in 2024, followed by voice, data, and IoT (Internet of Things) plans in 2025.
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SpaceX has also partnered with other companies globally, including Rogers in Canada, Optus in Australia, and KDDI in Japan, to extend the reach of this satellite internet connectivity initiative.
To enable this service, SpaceX has developed larger, special versions of the Starlink satellites with D2D capability. The first six of these satellites were successfully launched on January 2, and early tests have been completed without any issues.
In a recent blog post, SpaceX announced, “On Monday, January 8, less than 6 days after launch, we sent and received our first text messages to and from unmodified cell phones on the ground to our new satellites in space using T-Mobile network spectrum… [indicating that] the system works.”
T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert compared the technology to putting a cellular tower in the sky when the plan was initially announced. He emphasized that it has the potential to eliminate dead zones, enabling people to easily stay connected with their loved ones, even in remote locations such as the middle of the ocean.
However, SpaceX clarified that the system, which utilizes LTE/4G protocols rather than 5G, is more complex than traditional cell towers in the sky. Due to the satellites’ high speed relative to the Earth, data must be seamlessly handed off between them.
Factors such as Doppler shift, timing delays, and the relatively low transmission power of smartphones also need to be taken into account.
While this collaboration between SpaceX and T-Mobile marks a significant step towards providing seamless satellite internet connectivity to cell phones, they are not the first to test such a system. AT&T has been working with communications specialist AST SpaceMobile in a similar endeavor.
