Satellite-to-cell service by SpaceX and T-Mobile planned for this year, will end ‘mobile dead zones’

Starlink for RVs has changed its name to “Roam” and added a “global roaming” service at an increased price—$200 per month. The regional roaming price for Starlink RV remains at $150 per month.

This means that if you should venture beyond the boundaries of the North American continent, you will still (maybe) have broadband connectivity. You might see slower speeds, though. “Starlink Roam provides Best Effort service—there is no priority access included in the plan,” SpaceX revealed on its website. Starlink Roam users may see download speeds down around 5–50 Mbps, versus the 20–100 Mbps speeds typical on the stationary residential Starlink plan.

A subscriber on the global roaming tier may also encounter regions lacking Starlink ground stations. In that scenario, Starlink satellites will get the signal over laser links to acquire internet data and send it to the other satellites in the network, resulting in greater latency.

Starlink and T-Mobile to begin tests

As we reported last October, SpaceX is partnering with T-Mobile.

SpaceX and T-Mobile will begin testing their joint venture satellite-to-cell service this year, according to Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX vice president of Starlink Enterprise Sales. The service will offer space-based data services directly to smartphones and other devices on the ground.

SpaceX and T-Mobile announced their partnership last year (watch the video announcement here) and promised to “end mobile dead zones.”

SpaceX has launched roughly 4,000 Starlink satellites to date, the newest of them being the “V2 Mini” satellites, which have quadrupled the capacity of the previous generation.

Hofeller said that SpaceX is currently manufacturing six V2 Mini satellites per day at its facility near Seattle and has ceased production of its series 1.5 Starlink satellites. The company produces “thousands” of user terminals per day.

SpaceX announced last December that Starlink had achieved more than one million subscribers worldwide. Hofeller said this number has steadily increased, up from 145,000 users at the start of 2022.

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