T-Mobile US: Satellite connection for normal smartphones-provider doesn’t matter

Customers of T-Mobile US and other providers can now book the option in the USA to send and receive messages in remote areas with their conventional smartphone in remote areas. The head of the Telekom subsidiary now announced. The monthly beta test of the offer has ended. If you don’t have any of the contracts for $ 100 or more per month at T-Mobile, you have to pay $ 15 per month for “T satellite”-for the first time it is only $ 10. In return, you can send and receive text messages in areas without mobile phone connection, pass on the location, make emergency calls and even take photos and voice messages via Google Messages.

No more radio clads

How T-Mobile on the page for the additional offer Explained, this is based on more than 650 Starlink satellites from the US room trip company SpaceX. If your own smartphone can not contact a mobile radio tower in a remote region, it automatically contacts one of these satellites when you are booked. This works with over 60 different models everywhere in the continental USA, in Hawaii and Puerto Rico and in parts of Alaska. This requires a clear view of the sky as possible. In the future, images and voice messages will also be sent to other services, mobile internet connections are also planned.

Starlink has been built by SpaceX for years. So far, special antennas have been necessary to make contact with the satellites. Since the beginning of 2024, further developed satellites have been shot into space that enable a direct connection to smartphones. However, the circumstances are not equally good everywhere: in Central Europe with its many small states of space, for example, the different country -specific radio regulations are an obstacle. That is why Deutsche Telekom relies on alternatives. The situation is different in Ukraine, for example, where the provider Kyivstar is still planning a similar offer for this year. T-Mobile US had started its own beta test in February.