T-Mobile and SpaceX have taken another step towards enabling satellite connectivity for T-Mobile's wireless users. On Monday, the two companies announced that they have opened up registration for T-Mobile Starlink, their joint program that allows T-Mobile users to connect to SpaceX's Starlink satellites to gain connectivity in areas where there isn't terrestrial wireless coverage.
T-Mobile says the beta program is free for all "postpaid voice customers with a compatible device" and will allow for texting using satellites to start when it kicks off "in early 2025." The carrier says that voice and data support will be "coming in the future."
The carrier is expecting to launch the commercial version of the service "sometime in 2025", and it is unclear if it will charge users then for the connectivity or if it will limit access or features to customers with specific wireless plans.
"In time, T-Mobile Starlink is expected to work with the phone in your pocket," the carrier told CNET when asked about which phones would be compatible for the beta. "During the beta test phase, we are optimizing the experience on select devices and will continue to test and extend to as many devices as possible with time we'll provide more details about the optimized phones and share them closer to our T-Mobile Starlink beta launch."
"T-Mobile Starlink is the first major low-earth orbit constellation in the world paired with terrestrial cellular spectrum, making the phone in your pocket work in areas of the U.S. that have never, and probably never will, have ground based coverage," Mike Katz, T-Mobile's president of marketing, strategy and products said in a statement.
"It's a truly groundbreaking engineering breakthrough and means that we are one step closer to helping T-Mobile customers have confidence that, no matter where they are, if they can see the sky, they will be covered by T-Mobile," Katz said.
T-Mobile and SpaceX first announced their partnership back in 2022 combining some of T-Mobile's wireless spectrum with SpaceX's satellites. SpaceX put its first satellites capable of the service into orbit in January of this year and has has since been building out its constellation of capable Starlink satellites.
The two companies actually turned on the service as Hurricanes Milton and Helene battered parts of the US in October, with users connected to the service seeing "T-Mobile SpaceX" in the network name and their phones displaying "1 to 2 bars of signal" strength, according to SpaceX.
Last month the Federal Communications Commission gave its approval to SpaceX to use "all 7,500 satellites in its authorized Gen2 system" for cell coverage. It has yet to approve its plan for additional satellites, including "the remaining 22,488 satellites" the company would like to deploy for the service.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has previously posted on X that the company will exclusively partner with T-Mobile on the service for at least the first year.
T-Mobile rivals AT&T and Verizon have previously announced their own plans for satellite connectivity through AST SpaceMobile, with Verizon previously announcing plans to working with Amazon's Project Kuiper back in 2021. Verizon is also working with satellite provider Skylo to enable texting on Android phones. (iPhone 14 and later Apple phones, regardless of carrier, are able to use satellites for iMessage texting with iOS 18.)
At some point "early next year" Verizon has said it will let users with "compatible devices" like Google's Pixel 9 or Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S25 series be able to text using satellites.
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