T-Mobile has silently enabled a new feature for Samsung and Motorola users
T-Mobile 's T-Satellite service officially launched on July 23, after months of beta testing. Roughly a week later, the company has enabled support for MMS, allowing you to send more than just plain text messages to friends and family. This means you can now send images, audio, and video via satellite.
PCMag tested out the service and came away mostly impressed. The outlet took the feature for a spin in Southern California. Connecting to the service is a seamless affair and happens automatically when you enter a dead zone. T-Mobile even sends you a text to let you know that you have established a satellite connection. You don't necessarily need to hold the phone up to the sky to maintain the connection. You may get service even inside you car.At the moment, only Samsung and Motorola phones are supported. PCMag was able to send different multimedia items using a Samsung Galaxy S24 FE. The phone also managed to receive GIFs and audio clips, though it took a while to download them.As is the case with texts sent over satellite, MMS sent via satellite are subject to delays, so the experience wasn't comparable to ground-based options.In some instances, it took up to two minutes for a picture to go through. That's to be expected with satellite-based communication, though, and the bottom line is that every image was sent successfully.
Videos took even longer to send, even though they were short clips of 5 seconds. It took more than 10 minutes for the first video to go through, and the second one took over 20 minutes.
It took a long time to send videos using T-Satellite. | Image Credit - PCMag
This was another demonstration of how far ahead T-Mobile is of not only its direct rivals but also the likes of Globalstar, which powers iPhone's satellite messaging. The MMS feature doesn't work on the iPhone right now, but given that T-Mobile is swift in expanding support, it shouldn't be long before Apple's smartphones and more Android handsets are supported.
T-Mobile plans to introduce data services on October 1, and voice support is also expected in the future.
T-Satellite is only free for T-Mobile customers on Experience Beyond and Go5G Next plans. For everyone else, there's a monthly charge. The addition of MMS support might compel those with supported phones to give the service a try.
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