T-Mobile Opens Cellular Starlink Beta to AT&T and Verizon Users, Reveals Pricing | Hacker News Reader

T-Mobile Opens Cellular Starlink Beta to AT&T and Verizon Users, Reveals Pricing

pcmag.com

21 pointstech234a15 comments

What is the target market for this in the US?

The Super Bowl ad mentioned 500k mi^2 of the US are not covered by cellular, which is about 13% of the area of the US. Looking at the Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile coverage maps it does look like somewhere in the ballpark of 13% is uncovered, with most of that being in Alaska.

The ad describes these places like this: "Places where emergency texts never send. Where emotional messages are not received. And countless memories are left unshared".

For the emergency texts, that is something clearly useful to anyone who finds themselves in a place without coverage, regardless of whether they live there are or just visiting.

For the "emotional messages" and "countless memories" what the ad showed as examples such as video of a high school basketball game dramatic win at buzzer, a baby's first steps, and a child's first bike ride without training wheels.

Those would be useful for people living in the cell-free areas, but I'm not sure they would be that useful for those just visiting. If I'm vacationing in a remote wilderness I probably only want emergency communications to/from outside that area.

I'd guess then is that the market for this would mostly be people living in those areas. Maybe people visiting will get it short term (if that is allowed) for the emergency texting if they aren't going to be staying with people who live there and already have it.

So...how many people live in such places?

Just for an example there are places within 10 miles of Apple HQ with no cell service. It’s simply not worth it to cell providers to guarantee 100 percent coverage in all the valleys in mountainous terrain. Many of the CA state parks have no cell service outside of WiFi at the park HQ. Vast swaths of coastal region has no cell service either, so even people who might just commute or travel a bit might desire the feature.

Remote areas sure, but also spots where you have line of sight to a satellite, but a cell signal can't get to, like canyons. Which is actually surprisingly common in some areas, like San Diego, depending on your carrier!

Yep, I lived in an apartment off Poway Rd (Sabre Springs) and we were perfectly placed in a valley where cell had "signal" but didn't work very well if at all.

Or merely on the wrong side of a small hill, like here in Kansas.

There's fair coverage in our house, but go half a mile away to one of the fields we farm and the connection is very unreliable.

I wonder how non-T-Mobile users will access the beta. Roaming requires cooperation from both the home and visited network since UMTS/3G (which introduced mutual authentication; before that it was only the SIM authenticating itself to the network). Somehow I doubt that AT&T and Verizon will actively set up domestic roaming just for this beta.

My suspicion is that T-Mobile will tie this into their "Network Pass" program, i.e. their eSIM based free trial solution.

As a Mint Mobile user I'll be lucky to see access to this approximately ever. They're still trying to get into Apple's RCS, even though they already use T-Mobile's network...

It's the other way around, as far as I know: Unlike Google, Apple does not offer any RCS infrastructure. It's supposed to be provided by the carrier anyway, but not all do.

That said, I think there might be a secondary problem of carriers having to get their RCS configuration deployed via Apple's "carrier profile" system, which seems like a bit of a nightmare, especially for networks that don't have a business relationship with Apple.

But it's definitely possible even for MVNOs: US Mobile has been supporting RCS on their Verizon plans for a few months now, but not yet on T-Mobile. Not sure whether T-Mobile's MVNO platform or Apple is the blocker here.

Yes Apple has no RCS infrastructure, they do have a carrier profile system as you mentioned that means iOS devices won't support RCS on any given network until you get Apple to distribute the configuration for that network.

I really would like to see an OS-level disablement switch for Starlink, regardless of carrier.

Why? Is it just for culture war reasons?

Undoubtedly to prevent Starlink from making any observations about the current position of their phone.

Why not just avoid signing up for starlink service? I think you have to ask and be invited into the test.

Starlink essentially just provides additional cell tower sites to your network.

If you don't like your network using these for whatever reason, the best action would be to use another network.

This is sound short-term advice, as long as there are carriers that do not support Starlink. Voting with your feet / wallet only works as long as there are viable places for your feet and currency to go.

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