Elon Musk just announced that the upcoming second-generation Starlink Internet satellites will include cellular antennas for connections to T-Mobile phones in the US, and possibly other operators as well.
After the event, he responded to tweets asking if the connections will work with Tesla’s electric cars, which currently connect to AT&T’s LTE network. According to Muskthe answer is yes.
He didn’t go into detail about how it will all work or how much data owners can expect to access the connections when they’re somewhere out of reach of terrestrial cell towers. Musk said at the event that Starlink’s satellite-to-cellular coverage will be able to provide a 2-4 Mbps connection, shared by everyone in the satellite’s coverage area. That probably won’t be enough for some premium connectivity features, like live streaming video from your car’s cameras. Still, a connection that works at all, “anywhere you have a view of the sky”, better than no connection, is possible.
In a comment to The edgeLightShed Partners analyst Walter Piecyk pointed out that enabling access could work similarly to an MVNO like Google Fi, which uses multiple carriers as its backbone, or that Musk could change AT&T’s carrier deal in the future.
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