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Cellphones Space

Free 'T-Mobile Starlink' for Six Months Announced During Super Bowl. Also Available to Verizon and AT&T Customers 130

Posted by EditorDavid from the satellite-service dept.
Today T-Mobile announced what they're calling "the next big thing in wireless" — T-Mobile Starlink. But the real surprise is "The beta is now open for absolutely everyone — yes, even Verizon and AT&T customers — to register for free access until July."

And, as they explained to Americans watching the Super Bowl, "If you can see the sky you're connected." Now in public beta, this breakthrough service, developed in partnership with Starlink, uses straight-out-of-a-sci-fi-movie satellite and mobile communications technology to help keep people connected — even you, Verizon and AT&T customers — in the more than 500,000 square miles of the country unreached by any carrier's earth-bound cell towers. That's nearly the size of two Texases...! The beauty of the service is its simplicity: users don't need to do anything out of the ordinary. When a user's cell phone gets out of range of a cell tower, the phone automatically connects to the T-Mobile Starlink network. No need to manually connect. Messages are sent and received just as they are today on a traditional network, even group texts and reactions. And it works on most smartphones from the last four years. It's not limited to a few smartphones or operating systems...

The beta is free until July at which point T-Mobile Starlink will be included at no extra cost on Go5G Next (including variations like Go5G Next 55+), T-Mobile's best plan. Business customers will also get T-Mobile Starlink at no extra cost on Go5G Business Next, first responder agencies on T-Priority plans and other select premium rate plans. T-Mobile customers on any other plan can add the service for $15/month per line. Through February, T-Mobile customers who have registered for the beta can secure a $10/month per line Early Adopter Discount, 33% off the full price.

AT&T and Verizon customers hate dead zones, too

When your service is amazing and different, you want as many people to try it as possible. T-Mobile is giving AT&T and Verizon customers the opportunity to try out T-Mobile Starlink satellite service on their existing phones... During the beta period, Verizon and AT&T customers can experience T-Mobile Starlink text messaging for free, and once the service launches in July, it will be available for $20/month per line... More details and consumer registration can be found here.

A Vision for Universal Coverage

As T-Mobile and Starlink continue to work towards eliminating mobile deadzones, the companies welcome wireless providers from around the world to join their growing alliance, which aims to provide reciprocal roaming for all participating carriers. So far, KDDI (Japan), Telstra (Australia), Optus (Australia), One NZ (New Zealand), Salt (Switzerland), Entel (Chile & Peru), Rogers (Canada) and Kyivstar (Ukraine) are among the providers that have signed on to join the cause and launch satellite-to-mobile technology. Learn more about the alliance and how providers can join at direct.starlink.com.

Free 'T-Mobile Starlink' for Six Months Announced During Super Bowl. Also Available to Verizon and AT&T Customers More | Reply

Free 'T-Mobile Starlink' for Six Months Announced During Super Bowl. Also Available to Verizon and AT&T Customers

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  • Give people free shit and they'll forget you've stolen their personal information including health, disability, retirement, salary, and tax information to decide if you want to stalk and/or persecute them as an enemy of the state.

    Also, the "paranoid" personal privacy people and Sinclair Lewis [worldcat.org] were proven to be correct in this one area. Content and metadata will be collected, organized, and weaponized to be used against you for whatever reason(s) those who cease power decide.

    • Wait till this guy finds out how the American space program got started in the late 40s...

      • Wait till this guy finds out how the American space program got started in the late 40s...

        That's pretty well known. Enough so that the writers of Back to the Future III [imdb.com] made a reference.

        Young Doc : The Browns didn't come to Hill Valley until 1908. Then, they were the Von Brauns. My father changed our name during the first World War.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 )

      The OPM lost my PII to China years ago. They sent me a letter letting me know how to sign up for a year of credit watch.

      The Treasury was fully hacked by China last year.

      No one gives a shit about either event. But the executive branch audits itself with outside contractors and it's the end of the fucking world.

      Sure. Privacy is important. Right. Bullshit. The whining about these audits is just to distract from the hundreds of billions in theft and corruption already uncovered.

      Oh hey, did you care when

      • Re:Musk profit dmg control (Score:4, Informative)

        by bhcompy ( 1877290 ) on Monday February 10, 2025 @01:27AM (#65154723)
        The OPM leak meant a lot. And it meant a lot to people who work in/with China. I don't really have to worry much about China oppressing me as they're on the other side of the world and my work doesn't really involve them. Nothing I do counteracts or threatens their power. The new regime is right here at home, and they have all of the info they need to pull levers on me because BIs are roto rooters into your history and personal life, and they have every incentive to pull every lever on me that they can to help keep them in power because as a voter here I am a direct threat to their power.

        • So you think Elon is sitting at his laptop looking at your PII and giggling evilly as he writes a mean tweet about you based on your government data in order to control how you vote?

          Wut?

          Dude.

          And before Elon no one would ever dare look at your data to control you? They collect countless petabytes of data on all of us but never looked at it before now?

          Dude.

          Just ... dude.

          • All the talk is about data extraction. What are they doing with the data?

            • It's a valid question I haven't seen an answer to and until we do know, the question of proper data storage is a problem. But if it were being copied off site to the Evil Elon Data Center in Musk, Texas, I think it's fair to assume the opposition would have told us that and it'd be all over the news.

              Instead we get FUD stories about how our medical data is going to be spilled all over the internet (as if it wasn't already) to cover up the hundreds of billions in stolen tax dollars which is the story we real

            • What are they doing with the data?

              I'm certain they are carefully examining the data to identify thoughtful, reasonable strategies for increasing efficiency and saving money for the taxpayer.

              HAHA, just kidding. Extortion. It's totally extortion. ("Nice SS payments you got there. It'd be a shame if something were to happen to it. Protect the flow of your SS payments for only $59.99 per month by clicking here now.")

          • they're going to try use AI, at scale, to oppress us, dipshit

    • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by Wheres the kaboom ( 10344974 )

      StarLink technology is simply yet another technological system advancement. We already put immense trust in the system by getting a cell phone in the first place, using a credit card, streaming a movie, or even simply by walking down a city street.

      The good news is that there's a proven bulwark against systemic abuse: the US Constitution's individual rights. These limit government ability to censor speech, ensure blind justice, elevate judging by merit over judging by identity, protect property rights, and l

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Give people free shit and they'll forget you've stolen their personal information including health, disability, retirement, salary, and tax information to decide if you want to stalk and/or persecute them as an enemy of the state.

      even though that doesn't mean shit....
      and your lefty fear rhetoric isn't being brought by anyone....
      your supporting the theft, corruption and money laundering of the left.....

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        and your lefty fear rhetoric isn't being brought by anyone....
        your supporting the theft, corruption and money laundering of the left.....

        Please take some time to learn about:

        - The difference between "bought" and "brought".
        - The difference between "your" and "you're".
        - Capital letters.

        They're a basic concepts taught to kids early in life. Maybe try finishing the first grade.

  • I was always happy I could potentially use my iPhone in the wilderness to send emergency SOS messages via satellite. It made me feel a lot more comfortable going on remote hikes.

    But this is way better - using this I can just send status updates as often as needed along with background location updates to others back home.

    And, best thing, this is not limited to iPhone (AFAIK)!! I don't know if Android devices had this same remote satellite SMS in recent years, but if not now they have this option.

    I just wo

    • I just wonder what speed would be like

      None.
      It doesn't support data. Yet (supposedly).

      and just how much out in the open you have to be to use this.

      The band being used is 1900Mhz. You need a pretty clear LOS, presumably, given what must be a vanishingly small SNR at the Sat side, even with Starlink's mega-gain antennas- since 40 feet into a forest reduces 1900Mhz by about 20dB, and I have a lot of trouble believing they have that kind of link budget.

      They have plans to support data and calls at some point. I have a bit of trouble believing that they'll be able to get enough bidirectional bandwidth at 190

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kriston ( 7886 )

        The technology being described here uses 1.6 to 2.7 GHz.

        • It uses 1900Mhz, because StarLink has no licensed bands, and is currently using T-Mobile licensed bandwidth.
          But yes- it works for all LTE bands, since it's just literally a moving LTE tower in space.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tragedy ( 27079 )

      There are definitely some real data rate concerns here though. In the Wilderness at least, you should be ok in terms of communication with the satellite overhead, but if usage of the Starlink network goes way up, what's the data rate like between satellites? Anyone know? Could we run into a situation where, even in remote areas, communications can't get through because satellite to satellite communications are overloaded? In theory, this will use local cell towers where available and only use satellite when

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        The idea is that there won't be many users in the wilderness outside of regular cell service range, and those users will generally be spread out. If there does happen to be regular large groups in areas not served by existing cell towers then that's a signal that they should build cell towers to cover those areas.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tragedy ( 27079 )

          That's basically what I said for wilderness usage. As for house users in Cellular dead zones, with no wired Internet connection, the area of a Starlink beam is about 177 square miles, or 113,000 acres. Even if every home is on a 300 acre farm that would be about 377 homes. If they have the average family size, that's 1,187 people, at least 1000 of which will be interested in using the data connection (someone else mentioned that this may be voice only, although data may come later, so this may be irrelevant

      • The thing about remote locations is that there tend to be very few people there. And the take it further and only include people who have a compatible phone on one of the three big carriers and that number is even smaller. I think it will be fine.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tragedy ( 27079 )

          I discussed this in another reply, but a Starlink beam covers about 113,000 acres. Anywhere people live and don't have giant ranches (in which case they're rich enough to just have Starlink terminals already) or live in utter isolation (once again, quite probably rich but, if not, still probably have satellite Internet), there are probably still around 1000+ people in the beam area and they will get terrible diluted service. As for the handful of exceptions in extremely isolated situations, by their very na

    • I was always happy I could potentially use my iPhone in the wilderness to send emergency SOS messages via satellite. It made me feel a lot more comfortable going on remote hikes.

      Yes, somewhere in the woods there's a bear thinking "I better not maul this guy, his cellphone now has access to Starlink!"

  • "T-Mobile customers on any other plan can add the service for $15/month per line" - considering I pay 2€/month for my entire phone subscription, this doesn't look like something I would use.

  • Won't be helping Musk (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dclayb ( 9667844 ) on Monday February 10, 2025 @08:29AM (#65155269)
    The best way to deal with this dbag is by causing his stock to crash. He did it himself for Twitter, bad design ruined the ugly truck, and regular Tesla owners are starting to sell their vehicles because of his political association and right-wing tendencies (plus his Hitlerian salute). I used to think he was a genius; now I think he's a dumbass.

  • Anyone else feel like the latter part of this article reads like an ad? Just post a link to the T-Mobile site next time; otherwise, use some editorial discretion.

  • Setting aside the politics of it, my understanding is that they have a product ready to go, just awaiting FCC approval.

    Vodafone have already completed test video calls using a regular smartphone in a remote part of Wakes. Verizon and AT&T are on board and will use their services once the FCC gives the green light.

    And unlike Starlink, it would appear that AST Spacemobile was set up with the idea of being the cell tower in space, rather than a general purpose Internet broadband solution with a cell tower

  • Watch for some small church to wipe themselves out

  • The technology is quite interesting.

    It means Skynet can see every phone's location everywhere on Earth regardless of your location settings.

    "No dead zones" and "planetary tracking grid" are different ways to look at the same set of facts.

  • A Galaxy S23 (two years old) is SOL

  • During the Civil War II, the republicans will have a communication system they can trust--the Democrats will not.

  • Frequency range is 1.6 to 2.7 GHz. I'm assuming they're avoiding WiFi, DISH Network terrestrial, and SiriusXM.

  • So how does this work for someone that has a phone on AT&T? Do you have to set up an esim or something? My Pixel 8 has some kind of satellite SOS, so is this just reprogramming settings for something like that on compatible phones?

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