Changing Tires – Changing Connectivity

It rained all night. The dirt road was muddy and slick with large loose rocks. We had just finished our campout and now our small caravan of cars, trucks, boys, and men needed to go down that road. With white knuckles we made it to the main highway turnoff and breathed a sigh of relief. But our relief was a bit too early. The front vehicle stopped on level ground while the others in the back were still on a muddy hill. Forced to hit the brakes, the driver of one truck slid sideways into a sharp rock, which caused a sidewall puncture in the tire. It was letting out air fast. We pulled over and tried to get the spare, but the spare was locked and the key did not fit.

We had no cell phone reception. We did, however, have a phone that could connect to the Globalstar network with around 30 satellites orbiting at 800–900 miles above Earth. If you have tried this before, you have to hold your phone in the air and point it toward a satellite and hope you get a connection. To receive a text, you must do the same thing, but you’re never sure if anyone is responding. You may be pointing your phone at a satellite for no reason. Depending on how dire the situation is, you may just give up and try to solve the problem yourself. That’s what we did.

We sent a runner into town, and 30 minutes later, he came back with a hack to remove the locking mechanism. Easy. But it could have been faster and easier if someone had texted us the hack. Also, this was a relatively small problem. What if a car had rolled off the edge of an embankment and people were trapped and hurt? Do you spend your time caring for the wounded or pointing a phone at the sky to get help?

With recent exciting changes in technology, this tradeoff is becoming a thing of the past. Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites are orbiting closer to Earth than ever before with bigger constellations. Starlink now has 650 direct-to-cell (DTC) satellites that orbit at about 300 miles above Earth. The number of satellites matters. At that altitude they orbit Earth every 90 minutes. If a Starlink satellite is overhead, it won’t be for long. But with high numbers of satellites, another is always taking its place.

Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to test Starlink’s DTC satellites on the T-Mobile network. I drive to remote areas and text people willing to contact me back. The amazing thing is that connectivity with T-Satellite (as it’s called) feels the same as a regular cell network. Once you are connected, you can text back and forth very quickly. There is no pointing your phone to the sky or waiting. You simply make sure you have a view of the sky and you are good to go.