SpaceX Starlink now has over 100 Starlink satellites with direct to cellphone capability in orbit.
Each satellite can provide about 17 mbps direct to cellphone communication. This would enable about 10,000 simultaneous voice or low bandwidth data connections. It can also support millions of text messages and other short communications every few seconds.
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Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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I recall reading the Usborne books of the future as a kid.
In one of them, there was a forecast of wrist based communication devices, based on huge satellites providing continuous coverage and communication to them, anywhere.
Well, we are practically there, except its a lot of satellites doing that. And wrist based communication devices are rather rare (but funnily, they do exist), with the slate format devices we know taking their place.
We are also effectively at AI ancilla- personalized AI assistants.
Ha, yeah, weird timeline. We are rather close to the future depicted in the movie Runaway, released in 1984.
It featured Tom Selleck as a cop, and in that future, computers and robots were commonplace and they were intelligent and talky. Seemed fat fetched back then. Not anymore.
Soon we will have lots of embodied bots, and they will talk making sense.
As a T Mobile subscriber, I’m looking forward to my next hike in the mountains, once they’ve activated this feature. No more will my wife insist on standing in the same place for 10 minutes just because of freak local reception!
I’m on T-Mobile also. Their Magenta plan for seniors (55+) is a quite a bargain, especially the deal I got years ago when I signed up for 4 lines. The amount of hotspotting at 4G speeds is killer.
I’m taking a trip to Eastern Europe in the Fall. Since T-Mobile’s parent company is Deutsche Telekom, I can use Whats App for voice and text all over Europe and not worry about crazy roaming/voice call fees.
But I’m wondering if T-Mobile’s agreement with Starlink will be available by then? It’d be great to remove another point of friction while I travel…
I don’t think the plan was approved outside the US. In theory the starlink satellites may work everywhere, but T-Mobile and SpaceX can’t legally provide service in any country without certification from that country first.