3
Starlink Launches First 'Cellphone Towers In Space' For Use with LTE Phones - Sl...
source link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/01/04/0143227/starlink-launches-first-cellphone-towers-in-space-for-use-with-lte-phones
Go to the source link to view the article. You can view the picture content, updated content and better typesetting reading experience. If the link is broken, please click the button below to view the snapshot at that time.
Starlink Launches First 'Cellphone Towers In Space' For Use with LTE Phonesbinspamdupenotthebestofftopicslownewsdaystalestupid freshfunnyinsightfulinterestingmaybe offtopicflamebaittrollredundantoverrated insightfulinterestinginformativefunnyunderrated descriptive typodupeerror
Sign up for the Slashdot newsletter! OR check out the new Slashdot job board to browse remote jobs or jobs in your areaDo you develop on GitHub? You can keep using GitHub but automatically sync your GitHub releases to SourceForge quickly and easily with this tool so your projects have a backup location, and get your project in front of SourceForge's nearly 30 million monthly users. It takes less than a minute. Get new users downloading your project releases today!
×
SpaceX launched a total of 21 satellites on Tuesday night, including "the first six Starlink satellites with Direct to Cell capabilities that enable mobile network operators around the world to provide seamless global access to texting, calling, and browsing wherever you may be on land, lakes, or coastal waters without changing hardware or firmware. The enhanced Starlink satellites have an advanced modem that acts as a cellphone tower in space, eliminating dead zones with network integration similar to a standard roaming partner," the company said. Ars Technica reports: Besides T-Mobile in the US, several carriers in other countries have signed up to use the direct-to-cell satellites. SpaceX said the other carriers are Rogers in Canada, KDDI in Japan, Optus in Australia, One NZ in New Zealand, Salt in Switzerland, and Entel in Chile and Peru. While SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote that the satellites will "allow for mobile phone connectivity anywhere on Earth," he also described a significant bandwidth limit. "Note, this only supports ~7Mb per beam and the beams are very big, so while this is a great solution for locations with no cellular connectivity, it is not meaningfully competitive with existing terrestrial cellular networks," Musk wrote.
Starlink's direct-to-cell website says the service will provide text messaging only when it becomes available in 2024, with voice and data service beginning sometime in 2025. Starlink's low Earth orbit satellites will work with standard LTE phones, unlike earlier services that required phones specifically built for satellite use. SpaceX's direct-to-cell satellites will also connect with Internet of Things (IoT) devices in 2025, the company says.
Starlink's direct-to-cell website says the service will provide text messaging only when it becomes available in 2024, with voice and data service beginning sometime in 2025. Starlink's low Earth orbit satellites will work with standard LTE phones, unlike earlier services that required phones specifically built for satellite use. SpaceX's direct-to-cell satellites will also connect with Internet of Things (IoT) devices in 2025, the company says.
Recommend
About Joyk
Aggregate valuable and interesting links.
Joyk means Joy of geeK