SpaceX announced yesterday it will start testing satellite-to-cell service with T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS) before the close of 2023, according to SpaceX VP of Starlink enterprise sales Jonathan Hofeller. Hofeller outlined the partnership’s plans in comments at the Satellite 2023 conference in Washington, D.C. The two companies have cooperated for some time, highlighting the use case for Starlink in dead zones for traditional networks. Hofeller also added in his comments that the NASA partner has more than one million Starlink users at present.
“This won’t have the kind of bandwidth a Starlink terminal will have, but this will enable texting, it will enable images and if there aren’t too many people in the cell zone, you can even potentially have a little bit of video,” Elon Musk said in August. “We will no longer read about these tragedies that happened where people got lost and if only they could have called for help they’d be okay.”
SpaceX announced an agreement with Swiss telecommunications company Salt for satellite-to-cell service earlier this month. The agreement was the first agreement inked by the Elon Musk-led company in Europe.
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