T-Mobile and SpaceX are hosting an event Thursday evening that will be livestreamed and focused on a “joint mission” that the companies are working on to increase connectivity. But that’s about all anyone knows thus far.
The announcement shared with media says T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert will join SpaceX Chief Engineer Elon Musk at 7 p.m. Central time on Thursday to reveal what they’re working on.
Naturally, that led to a lot of speculation on what they’re doing. At Mobile World Congress 2021 in Barcelona, Musk talked about how he sees Starlink, the SpaceX low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband service, as a complement to terrestrial 5G and fiber, as the service can connect remote and hard-to-reach places around the world.
He also said Starlink had “two quite significant partnerships” with major telcos, but he didn’t reveal any more details. One of those might be T-Mobile, which could use Starlink as backhaul to connect its towers in remote locations.
Or, it could be a more far-reaching relationship, whereby T-Mobile includes the satellite service in mobile handsets. Of course, there are no device OEMs (hello, Apple? Samsung?) listed on the invitation, so that’s kind of “out there.”
What about 2 GHz?
Last month, PCMag spotted a filing with the FCC indicating SpaceX is looking to add the 2 GHz frequency to Starlink to serve “mobile users” in remote locations. And the 2 GHz frequency is very close to T-Mobile’s coveted 2.5 GHz frequency.
Tim Farrar, consultant with TMF Associates, said it’s possible that T-Mobile might become a partner in Starlink’s efforts to add 2 GHz to its satellites.
However, many technical and regulatory barriers stand in the way of deploying such a system – not the least of which is the spectrum licensed to Dish Network, which has its own conflicts associated with both T-Mobile and SpaceX for different reasons.
In the short term, “the main outcome of any such effort would simply be to annoy Charlie Ergen,” the chairman of Dish, he said.
One thing that both T-Mobile and Starlink have in common is their effort to expand home broadband.
“T-Mobile has gaps in 5G coverage that could be filled by reselling Starlink, while Starlink needs to go beyond early adopters that are happy with self-installation and minimal customer support to reach the wider group of potential customers who need more hand holding," he said.
In the wake of the recent FCC Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) rejection, a distribution partnership with T-Mobile might form part of an appeal of the RDOF decision, he said, noting that FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr weighed in on the RDOF decision today, “which is interesting timing.”