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Starlink (1900mhz) for T-Mobile, AST SpaceMobile (700mhz and 850mhz) for AT&T, GlobalStar (unknown frequency) for Apple, Iridium (unknown frequency) for Samsung, and AST SpaceMobile (850mhz) for Verizon only work on frequency bands the carrier has licensed nationwide. These systems broadcast and listen on multiple frequencies at the same time in areas much wider than normal cellular market license areas. They would struggle with only broadcasting certain frequencies only in certain markets so instead they require a nationwide license. With the antennas that are included on the satellites, they have range of cellular band frequencies they support and can have different frequencies with different providers in each supported country. The cellular bands in use are typically 5mhz x 5mhz bands (37.5mbps total for the entire cell) or smaller so they do not have a lot of data bandwidth for the satellite band covering a very large plot of land with potentially millions of customers in a single large cellular satellite cell. I have heard that each of Starlink's cells sharing that bandwidth will cover 75 or more miles. Satellite cellular connectivity will be set to the lowest priority connection just before SOS service on supported mobile devices and is made available nationwide in supported countries. The mobile device rules pushed by the provider decide when and where the device is allowed to connect to the satellite service and what services can be provided over that connection. The satellite has a weak receiving antenna and is moving very quickly so any significant obstructions above your mobile device antenna could cause it not to work. All the cellular satellite services are starting with texting only and some of them like Apple's solution only support a predefined set of text messages. Eventually it is expected that a limited number of simultaneous voice calls (VoLTE) will run on these per satellite cell. Any spare data will then be available as an extremely slow LTE data connection as it could potentially be shared by millions of people. Satellite data from the way these are currently configured will likely never work well enough to use unless you are in a very remote location. -
will this work for service in a plane? -
By Paynefanbro · Posted
T-Mobile owns the PCS G-block across the contiguous U.S. so they can just use that spectrum to broadcast direct to cell. Ideally your phone would only connect to it in areas where there isn't any terrestrial service available. -
So how does this whole direct to satellite thing fit in with the way it works now? Carriers spend billions for licenses for specific areas. So now T-Mobile can offer service direct to customers without having a Terrestrial license first? -
By AirlineFlyer · Posted
I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s Verizon, too. In my area they have multiple nodes on the same block as full macro sites with mmWave, in direct line of sight.
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