IPhones and Some Android Phones Will Support Starlink Direct-to-Cell Coverage in US (yahoo.com) 30
"iPhone devices are now eligible to test SpaceX-owned Starlink's direct-to-cell capability," Reuters reported this week, citing an announcement from T-Mobile:
T-Mobile and Elon Musk's SpaceX are currently testing the Starlink cell network on a trial basis after receiving approval from the Federal Communications Commission in November last year. The trial offers 'text via satellite', while voice and data features will be added in the future, according to the T-Mobile website. T-Mobile initially only listed a few Android smartphones as eligible devices to test the network, but has now added iPhone devices with the latest iOS 18.3 software update.
The next day stock prices fell for several direct-to-smartphone satellite companies, reports SpaceNews: Shares in Globalstar, which enables connectivity beyond the reach of cellular towers on the latest iPhones via a far-reaching partnership with Apple, closed down nearly 18% the following day. Constellation developer AST SpaceMobile slipped 12%. Canada's MDA, which is building at least 17 satellites for Globalstar after Apple agreed to cover most of the costs to replenish the constellation, also saw its shares fall more than 9%...
"Combined, today's price action in Globalstar and satellite manufacturer MDA suggest a real investor fear that SpaceX could disintermediate the Apple-Globalstar partnership," said Adam Rhodes, a senior telecoms analyst at Octus. "However, it appears to us that there is room for both services. Based on the information we have seen, we do not anticipate that Apple views the T-Mobile-Starlink service as a replacement for the Globalstar MSS network, but rather it is choosing to enable the added feature on its T-Mobile phones...." B. Riley analyst Mike Crawford noted that Apple's two binding contracts with Globalstar extend well into the next decade, ensuring both capital expenditure (capex) and recurring service revenues.
Thanks to Slashdot reader jjslash for sharing the news.
The next day stock prices fell for several direct-to-smartphone satellite companies, reports SpaceNews: Shares in Globalstar, which enables connectivity beyond the reach of cellular towers on the latest iPhones via a far-reaching partnership with Apple, closed down nearly 18% the following day. Constellation developer AST SpaceMobile slipped 12%. Canada's MDA, which is building at least 17 satellites for Globalstar after Apple agreed to cover most of the costs to replenish the constellation, also saw its shares fall more than 9%...
"Combined, today's price action in Globalstar and satellite manufacturer MDA suggest a real investor fear that SpaceX could disintermediate the Apple-Globalstar partnership," said Adam Rhodes, a senior telecoms analyst at Octus. "However, it appears to us that there is room for both services. Based on the information we have seen, we do not anticipate that Apple views the T-Mobile-Starlink service as a replacement for the Globalstar MSS network, but rather it is choosing to enable the added feature on its T-Mobile phones...." B. Riley analyst Mike Crawford noted that Apple's two binding contracts with Globalstar extend well into the next decade, ensuring both capital expenditure (capex) and recurring service revenues.
Thanks to Slashdot reader jjslash for sharing the news.
A musky taint (Score:5, Insightful)
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If this is Tmobile-specific, I will move my service elsewhere. Simply avoiding the service would not be enough.
Re: A musky taint (Score:2)
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Re: A musky taint (Score:2)
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So if you're out hiking and suddenly find yourself lost, and all you have is your phone but no towers in range, you're going to say "fuck Elon, I'd rather die out here"?
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I'm an adult, I already know how to avoid your ignorant hypothetical. There is no conceivable situation where I'd allow myself to become dependent on a sadistic sociopath for my life, at least not willingly. Fact is, the entire world finds itself in that situation today, thanks to people like you.
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I'm an adult, I already know how to avoid your ignorant hypothetical.
People who end up in these kinds of situations say this a lot. They tend to give themselves and those around them a false sense of security, and drag others into bad situations with them.
There is no conceivable situation where I'd allow myself to become dependent on a sadistic sociopath for my life, at least not willingly.
You have no idea what these words even mean. There's no evidence I've seen that indicates he is a sadist or a sociopath. In fact, I've only ever seen evidence of the opposite. A sadist is somebody who gets pleasure out of inflicting physical pain on another person. Most sadists do it with the other person's consent. A socio
Re:Starlink (Score:4, Insightful)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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...the current smartphones made for terrestrial cellular systems, there are going to need custom built smarphones made to communicate with satellites
TFA didn't mention anything about which phone models were eligible. it mentioned an iOS version which might only work on recent models.
Is anyone else amazed a cell radio intended to transmit to a tower a at most a few kilometers away can reach a satellite in LEO? The receivers in Starlink satellites must be astoundingly sensitive. The numbers I saw said they orbit around 500 km up. That's on the order of 100 times further than a cell tower, meaning 1/10,000th of the power receiving the satellite.
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They have bigger antennas and, most importantly, directional antennas which can focus much more tightly onto a particular handset. In comparison, cell tower antennas use a pretty wide beam. Starlink also needs to modify the frequencies it uses depending on how quickly it's moving towards or away from each customer, because of the Doppler effect. There's some very fancy signal processing going on to make all this work.
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There's also generally nothing in between the satellite and the ground (assuming you're standing outside)... A cell tower a mile away can have hundreds of buildings providing obstacles or sources of interference.
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"I think satellites are too far away to be effective for communication with the current smartphones made for terrestrial cellular systems, there are going to need custom built smarphones made to communicate with satellites"
Phones with faster electromagnetic rays? :-)
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Starlink is betting pretty big that your thinking is wrong, and they've probably even done the link budget calculations to back this up. Those direct-to-cell satellites are worth much less if everyone needs custom hardware for access. Expanding the range of handset models they're testing also sounds like they're pretty confident about how testing is going so far, though they did originally hope to have the service operational by the end of last year. Those traditional satellite phone companies look to be
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this is just as bad faith and stupid as the people you are critisizing
very few if any here thought Starlink wouldn't work from a technical perspective, there's really no reason to think it couldn't, the problem was never technological with a service like that but logistical which SX happened to be in a position to solve.
no what people have criticized is the business use case in which here on slashdot has been the opposite of what you say here; i've seen so many on here take the musk-bait hook line and sink
Pass on the Endickafied iPhone (Score:5, Insightful)
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A Nazi saluter who is best friends with Netanyahu?
This quote seems to fit.
You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain
Democrats: Do Not Trust Starlink or Anything Musk (Score:5, Insightful)
I signed up for the beta test (Score:2)
Starlink Playing Catchup (Score:3)
While I feel that this is great progress toward, what is to me, a utopian end. Full satellite service with a "standard" cell phone.
As someone who has to rely on satellite service from time to time do to remote areas, oceanic locations, and third-world countries, current satellite access requires special equipment, is SLOW, and expensive. It sucks! And this is one step down the road toward ubiquitous and relatively inexpensive access.
But, Starlink is playing catch up here. Apple has already rolled out such a service using Globestar, who they have heavily invested in. Also, Vodafone recently demonstrated a video call using a standard cellphone via satellite. [vodafone.com]
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But, Starlink is playing catch up here. Apple has already rolled out such a service using Globestar, who they have heavily invested in.
They rolled out a service that uses a separate radio, and which probably won't ever support much more than text messages and low-quality voice calls unless Globalstar launches a whole new satellite network, because their current-generation satellites are limited to just 256 kbps for data.
Also, Vodafone recently demonstrated a video call using a standard cellphone via satellite. [vodafone.com]
This one is a real competitor, because it works with any modern cell phone using the normal cellular radio, which means it theoretically could have the same capabilities as a cell tower, rather than being extremely bandwidt
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They rolled out a service that uses a separate radio, and which probably won't ever support much more than text messages and low-quality voice calls unless Globalstar launches a whole new satellite network, because their current-generation satellites are limited to just 256 kbps for data.
G.722, which provides pretty good audio quality, works fine over 64kbit. FM radio broadcasters relied completely on ISDN lines for syndication using G.722 since at least the early 90s, though no doubt some no longer do, likely instead doing IP over leased dedicated circuits.
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Oh, yeah, the "low-quality" bit was outdated info. When I first looked it up, I was looking at their first-generation satellites, which were capped at 9.6 kbps, and that's where that came from. :-)
Oh, agony...! (Score:2)