Is there anything that Elon Musk can’t conquer? First is was online payments with one of his first companies called X.com (before he bought Twitter and recently renamed it X, but that’s another story), then he created Tesla to crush gas-powered vehicles, then since he became a Billionaire he figured why not put all his money on the line and create a rocket company and name it SpaceX (there’s that X again). Now it sounds like he has cell phone providers as his next target.
SpaceX’s website says “Direct to Cell works with existing LTE phones wherever you can see the sky. No changes to hardware, firmware, or special apps are required, providing seamless access to text, voice, and data.”
Right now the only partner cell phone company listed for the U.S. is T-Mobile that says “New service aims to connect vast majority of smartphones already on T-Mobile’s network to Starlink satellites.”
I never like to bet against Elon Musk, and I wouldn’t put it past him to ultimately skip the regional cell phone companies and just offer service direct-to-consumers. They could roll out this text service in 2024, and then voice and IOT service in 2025, with existing cell phone companies as they’ve detailed in this article. Then they could go and launch their mobile virtual network operator by piggybacking on terrestrial networks like T-Mobile while providing cell phone coverage directly from space in areas that when cell phone coverage is practically non-existent, like in the desert, or out to sea, or where I live near a county airport and I can’t even get a 4G signal in my house! (good thing I’m not bitter)
SpaceX details Starlink-for-phones plan, launching in 2024