SpaceX Gets FCC Approval to Start Using Starlink for T-Mobile Cell Service

T-Mobile and SpaceX are getting closer to launch. In posts to X on Tuesday, SpaceX directors confirmed that their Starlink satellite broadband program has now been approved by the Federal Communications Commission to begin offering cell phone coverage. 

Sara Spangelo, a senior director at SpaceX according to her profile on the social media platform, said the approval "is a huge and critical step towards enabling ubiquitous high quality text, data, emergency and eventually voice connectivity in the US and internationally." 

SpaceX has lined up a variety of carrier partners for the service around the world and will be working with T-Mobile in the US exclusively at least the first year. T-Mobile and SpaceX first announced plans for using Starlink to bolster T-Mobile's cell coverage back in 2022, with the plan to initially support SMS texting and eventually voice and data as well. 

In its notice, the FCC approved SpaceX to use "all 7,500 satellites in its authorized Gen2 system" for cell coverage, though the agency continued "to defer SpaceX's request to deploy additional Gen2 Starlink satellites beyond the total 7,500 satellites previously authorized" including "the remaining 22,488 satellites" the company would like to deploy for the service. 

During Hurricanes Irene and Milton earlier this year the carrier and space company got temporary approval by the FCC to use Starlink to send emergency alerts and enable texting via satellite for people affected by the storms. 

With the new formal approval, SpaceX's Ben Longmier posted that the company hopes to enable beta access for employees in the US "soon."

Like Apple's satellite solution for iPhone 14 and later (and Google's for the Pixel 9 series), T-Mobile and SpaceX's service isn't designed to replace existing coverage you'd get from a wireless carrier today but augment it when normal terrestrial networks aren't available. In its deployments after the hurricanes, phones connected to the service saw "T-Mobile SpaceX" in the network name to signify satellite connectivity while displaying "1 to 2 bars of signal" strength. 

While SpaceX and T-Mobile's formal FCC approval is a notable step forward, the two are far from the only space game in town. AT&T, which alongside Verizon is working with AST SpaceMobile on its own satellite-based cellular connectivity solution, has teased on X that it will be sharing some space-related news during its investor day next week. 

Watch this: Apple vs. Google: Satellite Emergency Features Compared

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