T-Mobile opens the Beta Starlink, including people with AT & T and Verizon

Late last year, T-Mobile said he was preparing Start Beta Testing Spacex Starlink. The program appears to be ready to take off, as the carrier is expected to announce during the Super Bowl that it has begun to allow users access to satellite service.

As part of the experimental version, people in the program will be able to send SMS text messages when they are in the open air, even in areas where they do not usually get the T-Mobile ground coverage. Beta will be free and open to all users paid to T-Mobile until July, as the carrier also provides free for AT & T and Verizon customers.

In July, the carrier plans to start imposing fees on the service. It will be included as part of the next GO5G plan from T-Mobile and available as an addition to its other plans for $ 15 a month, each line. T-Mobile users who share the service this month will be able to lock a reduced rate of $ 10 per month, for each line as part of the “Early Plain” deal.

AT & T and Verizon users will be able to continue using the service for $ 20 per month, each line. These users will not need to switch to T-Mobile to add Starlink, but they will need a compatible device guaranteed to support ESIMS.

T-Mobile, AT & T and Verizon users interested in registering for the experimental version can do this at T-Mobile websiteWith the carrier planning to add users to the new service on the basis of the trader first. As the menu passes, you will arrive again with guidelines when users who ride in the experimental version are able to join.

The carrier was not planning to provide satellite coverage for AT & T and Verizon users, but he says he was transferred to do so after seeing Verizon’s The latest advertisement is characterized by the Buzz aldrin space. The advertisement has already achieved more than 8 million views on YouTube.

Clint Patterson, Senior Vice President of T-Mobile Marketing, tells that when it comes to supporting competing transport companies, “frankly, this was not part of our original plan for Super Bowl.”

“When we saw the last Verizon advertisement, I announced something that you could not do on Verizon, we felt that we needed to act.”

“It provides coverage to 500,000 square miles of terrain that cannot be accessed by Earth’s networks,” says T-Mobile says that IT and Starlink have more than 450 satellites in orbit.

Patterson said that T-Mobile has already added “tens of thousands” of users to the experimental version.

The transport company notes that it works with SpaceX manufacturers and hardware manufacturers to improve smartphones to be able to contact the new service, with the goal that as long as you have a vision of the sky, you should be able to stay in contact.

T-Mobile says it works with manufacturers “to ensure that the vast majority of T-Mobile phones that have been released in the past four years will work with T-Mobile Starlink”, including iPhone 14 and Galaxy S21.

Covering emergency situations

T-Mobile and Spacex They announced for the first time their partnership in 2022 It has recently used technology to keep people aware and communicating during natural disasters. The two companies previously operated the service in response to Hurricane Milton and Helen Last year and this month enabled it People who deal with Los Angeles fires.

In emergency situations, the company may provide the service available to everyone, regardless of the plan, according to Mike Kats, the head of marketing, strategy and products at T-Mobile. He said, “In the emergency times, you have to put your competitors and realize that there are more important things … and that people affected by these tragedies need help,” he said. “So it will always be our guideline principle in these things.”

As part of its publication in response to Los Angeles fires, the carrier only opened Starlink support for users who have more than Android phones and older iPhone models before the iPhone 14 series. Those who have the iPhone 14 or the latest phone instead to use the Apple satellite service, Which IPhone maker with Globalstar.

With the trial version and the full launch, T-Mobile will support more found devices in both Android and iOS. The carrier does not provide a list of compatible devices, but Katz notes that the phones available to beta “will be the lowest number of qualified devices, and they are likely to expand weekly, like them.”

“All the latest devices will be included at some point,” Katz said, adding that the carrier will notify customers when their phone is compatible with the experimental version.

T -Mobile said that as part of the opening of this new beta service, it will also be able to use the Starlink constellation to be able to broadcast wireless emergency alerts from government and local officials to anyone, regardless of whether they have T -mobile or a different provider.

The start of text messages, the data coming this year

Although the initial Starlink service from T-Mobile and Spacex will focus on text messages, the plan is to add support for sound and data, which can help provide a carrier width of the assembled of the hardware makers.

Patterson said that although the transportation company begins by sending short text messages in the experimental version, it plans to provide data services via the satellite “later this year” and sound services, such as communication, in the future.

Apple’s satellite solution allows messages to emergency services, and with iOS 18, Ordinary iMessages on the satellite. Google has recently made an emergency correspondent option in partnership with Skylo provider For the Pixel 9 series of phones; It is only for emergency messages.

Apple and Google are not currently receiving fees for satellite correspondence services, although they hint that they may add fees to the feature below the line.

Katz said that with the work of T-Mobile through the experimental version and towards a commercial launch, phones will know how to deal with conflicts between different satellite services, where the first option is the carrier service instead of a manufacturer. “All phones are designed to search for the carrier network first and then move to the other,” he said. “This is an extension of the carrier network.”