Wireless carriers these days have substantially improved their services over the past few years. And it continuously goes to grow at a rapid pace in this era of a technology-driven world. A lot of mobile carriers have been continuously jumping into the competition and offering a variety of services to own the crown of best.
Talking about the US market then despite wireless carriers offering good coverage in the states. But still vast part of the country still doesn’t get it. And the same going to prove inconvenient as well quite lethal sometimes in case of urgency. To address this issue, recently T-Mobile and SpaceX announced a partnership that could revolutionise mobile connectivity to the next level. The two companies combinely give the service to those areas using a satellite. It includes the areas that currently don’t have access to cellular service. And it is expected to launch this service in late 2023. Notably, Google’s Android OS (Android 14) will also be getting ready coming that time.
As per the statement said by Google’s senior vice president of Android, Hiroshi Lockheimer shared via Twitter that Google is “designing for satellites” and that the company is excited to support partners “in enabling all of this in the next version of Android.”
Wild to think about user experiences for phones that can connect to satellites. When we launched G1 in ’08 it was a stretch to get 3G + Wifi working. Now we’re designing for satellites. Cool! Excited to support our partners in enabling all of this in the next version of Android!
— Hiroshi Lockheimer (@lockheimer) September 1, 2022
Lockheimer is one of the core founding members of the Android team. He also calls to remind us about the challenges and difficulties of merging WiFi and 3G in the T-Mobile G1. Notably, it was the first consumer Android handset ever released in 2008. Although things got drastically changed now since those days, as both software and hardware continuous evolve further each year.
Tentative date to live
At the commencement of the T-Mobile and SpaceX event. T-Mobile CEO and President Mike Sievert delivered a statement to “end mobile dead zones”. Also, T-Mobile announced that it would establish this partnership with SpaceX to launch a satellite that will make it happen. In order to connect in rural areas without connectivity. The company’s “Coverage Above and Beyond” service takes some time and won’t go live until late in 2023 expectedly.
Service to be offered
This carrier service will initially be going to support access to messaging, MMS, and select messaging apps. And there are also plans to add further and expand it with the inclusion of voice as well as wireless internet eventually. It is uncertain at this point in time whether or not other carriers or companies will join the satellite movement. While on the other hand, it is backed by Google’s commitment to the technology. It seems like an excellent first step initiative to having it widely adopted in the coming future.