Partnership between Elon Musk (SpaceX) and T-Mobile to create satelite cellular coverage to dead areas of the US

[franco-bolli]

A friend of mine sent me this article posted Aug 25, 2022

https://www.teslarati.com/t-mobile-spacex-starlink-partnership/

The system, if actualized,  will be beta next year, but will be SMS to start with and probably for EMS at first, according to the article.
Listening to the embedded video by Eleon Musk and the CEO of T-Mobile, it sounds like there will need to be some infrastructure improvements to the satelite system to be completly effective. Meaning larger antenna's on satelites to pick up the small signals generated by cell phones on earth.

Data transfer is expected for the future.  Sure it will be low bandwidth at first, but having coverage where there is currently none, will be a a great leap forward.

Thoughts?

[Twotoes]

Europe and Asia use sat phones America has too much invested in cell towers

[franco-bolli]

1 hour ago, Twotoes said:

Europe and Asia use sat phones America has too much invested in cell towers

Granted, it's been several (more than 10) years since I traveled to Europe (Italy, Germany, France, Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland Denmark) and Asia (Singapore, Taiwan and China >Guang Zhou, Shanghai, Wuhan) but I didn't realize they had switched to sat phones. When did this occur?  I had thought that the iPhone was still a prized possession of many GEN Y and Z folks.
My brother in-law lives in Sweden outside of Gothenberg and still has a cell phone.  I've heard that Europe uses a different connect method but can't recall if it's TDMA or FDMA.
I'm interested to know when the switch to sat phones occured.

[RV_]

Franco, I read that article too. Still trying to figure out what they are actually trying to do. Data or voice or both. The cell companies don't want competition.

My son is In Germany and no sat phones or mention of them and they are BSRNs at Landstuhl. We are both techies  and I'll have to ask.

If you remember the competition for bands generated the big controversy over the Starlink bands I believe they have in mind with T-Mobile a plan of some sort to secure the bands in question? We'll just have to wait and see.

[franco-bolli]

Elon stumbled a bit in the explanation. It appears to be a first attempt to provide texting (SMS I think) to areas that currently have no coverage at all in the US.   He mentioned very low bandwidth to start, that would quickly be overwhelmed with data/voice/video users.  I thought I heard him say there was a potential 1/2 hour delay, but I'll need to relisten to the video.  Maybe the latency is because starlink satelites are non-geostationary...
As you said we'll have to wait and see if this pipedream comes to fruition. A real plus for T-Mobile users if it really happens, especially those who are regularly in the boonies and out of normal cell phone contact. 
 

In some cases, when all else fails, there is HAM radio, but it's not always the answer if you stick to just UHF/VHF frequencies.

[RV_]

I agree, it is worth watching.  Musk isn't boring except when he's doing tunnels. 😉

[Chalkie]

On 8/26/2022 at 8:11 PM, Twotoes said:

Europe and Asia use sat phones America has too much invested in cell towers

Since when? Never noticed that in my travels as my cell phone worked quite well there in Europe, the UK and Ireland at least.

On 8/26/2022 at 9:15 PM, franco-bolli said:

Granted, it's been several (more than 10) years since I traveled to Europe (Italy, Germany, France, Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland Denmark) and Asia (Singapore, Taiwan and China >Guang Zhou, Shanghai, Wuhan) 

Ditto. Sat phones are now banned or severely limited in 12 countries with China being in that group. Surprisingly, to me at least, India is one of those countries. 

8 hours ago, RV_ said:

I agree, it is worth watching.  Musk isn't boring except when he's doing tunnels. 😉

/groan/