Starlink getting ready to test cellphone service

3 years ago 1

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SpaceX vice president of Starlink enterprise sales, Jonathan Hofeller, says the company plans to begin testing its satellite-to-cellular service in 2023.

The comment was made at the Satellite Conference and Exhibition 2023 and first reported by CNBC journalist Michael Sheetz.

As it stands, Starlink is only capable of providing broadband Internet to customers who are connected to one of its proprietary dish antennas.

However, SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced a partnership with T-Mobile in August 2022 that will see Starlink’s network supplement the US mobile carrier’s coverage in areas without terrestrial tower signal.

While the first phones with purpose-made satellite modems are only expected in the coming years, T-Mobile will bypass this requirement by allowing Starlink to operate on some of its licenced spectrum.

Hofeller said the company wanted to take Starlink’s satellite-to-cellular capabilities beyond complementing terrestrial tower coverage and believed its low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation was best equipped to achieve that.

He believed that SpaceX still had a lot to learn about the potential of this capability.

“We’re definitely wrong; we just don’t know how wrong we are,” Hofeller said, referring to the feasibility of using Starlink for satellite-to-cellular communication.

“We’re going to learn a lot by doing — not necessarily by overanalysing — and getting out there, working with the telcos.”

Several other traditional land-based telecoms companies — including Vodacom and Verizon — are also working with satellite companies who they believe can help fill their coverage gaps.

The aim is to provide connectivity to customers in rural locations or hard-to-reach areas where expanding a tower network is difficult or economically unfeasible.

Samsung recently unveiled its first satellite modem for smartphones — the Exymos 5300 — which is anticipated to feature in upcoming flagship Galaxy smartphones.