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The
new plans, which would exist alongside T-mobile's existing
cellular services, would cut out the need for cell towers and
offer service for sending texts and images where cell coverage
does not currently exist, key for emergency situations in remote
areas, Musk said at a flashy event on Thursday at his company's
south Texas rocket facility.
Starlink's satellites will use T-Mobile's mid-band spectrum to
create a new network. Most phones used by the company's
customers will be compatible with the new service, which will
start with texting services in a beta phase beginning by the end
of next year.
SpaceX has launched nearly 3,000 low-Earth-orbiting Starlink
satellites since 2019, handily outpacing rivals OneWeb and
Amazon.com Inc's Project Kuiper.
SpaceX's next-generation Starlink satellites, the first of which
are planned to launch on SpaceX's next-generation Starship
rocket whenever it is fully developed, will have larger antennae
that will allow connectivity directly to mobile phones on the
T-mobile network, Musk said.
"We are constructing special antenna. ... They are actually very
big antenna that are extremely advanced," he said. "The
important thing is you will not need to get a new phone. The
phone you currently have will work."
Meanwhile, U.S telecom firms are in a race to build up the
mid-band portion of their 5G networks to catch up with T-Mobile,
which bagged a chunky 2.5 GHz of mid-band spectrum thanks to a
buyout of rival Sprint.
Mid-band or C-Band has proven to be perfect for 5G, as it
provides a good balance of capacity and coverage.
The carrier said it aims to pursue voice and data coverage after
the texting services beta phase.
Satellite communications firm AST SpaceMobile Inc is also
building a global cellular broadband network in space that will
operate with mobile devices without the need for additional
hardware.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette in Washington, Akash Sriram and Eva
Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Leslie
Adler)
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