Elon Musk Says Starlink Could Replace Your Cellphone Carrier

On Wednesday, just a day after SpaceX acquired $ 17 billion in wireless spectrum from the Echostar telecommunications company, Elon Musk made generally daring complaints about the way he would make it use. The richest second in the world described a vision where Starlink could be your one-stop shop for connectivity, whether at home or when you are far from your Wi-Fi.

On the all-in podcast, Musk said that Starlink could possibly combine his internet service at home with mobile. But he took care to note that Starlink would not put an AT&T, T -Mobile and Verizon – these companies still have much more of the wireless spectrum that is used to send SMS, make calls and broadcast videos. But the billionaire smiled when he was suggested that one way of acquiring more spectrum would be to buy Verizon.

“It’s not out of the question,” said Musk. “I guess it can happen.”

The CEO of SpaceX has also described a plan to use the newly acquired spectrum to use Starlink satellites, which SpaceX calls “Cellular Tours in space”, to send data directly to customer phones. Of the 8,140 total orbit spacex satellites, 657 are direct cell. The others are used for the Starlink Internet service.

“It’s a kind of long -term thing,” said Musk about the purchase of the Echostar spectrum. “This will allow SpaceX to provide wide -band connectivity directly from the phones satellites. But there are material changes that must occur in the phone. ”

Look at this: Practical with the T-Satellite service of T-Mobile

01:55

In order to use the Echostar spectrum, mobile phones should be equipped with chipsets that operate with these frequencies. Musk estimates which would take about two years.

“I think their place in the ecosystem is to support large carriers by providing satellite connectivity so that they can connect anywhere, at any time,” industry analyst with Wave7 Research told Cnet Moore.

In July, SpaceX launched a partnership with T-Mobile that uses Starlink satellites to fill connectivity gaps in dead areas across the country. Customers registered in the T-Satellite service can send SMS at the moment, but the service will develop next month to include data support in third-party applications such as Accuweather, Alltrails, Whatsapp and X.

The new Echostar spectrum would essentially hyperfute the direct bandwidth capacities of Starlink, but it will take a while to get there.

“It’s already there, but the more capacity you have, the better and the more frequencies, the better,” explains Moore. “There is certainly room for improvement. I think it is the intention of the spectrum transaction. ”

Do not miss any of our impartial technological content and laboratory criticism. Add CNET Like a favorite Google source.