Report tempers excitement about T-Mobile satellite internet
T-Mobile and SpaceX's direct-to-cell service will officially launch in July. The service is in beta right now and only lets customers send texts over satellite right now. T-Mobile is expected to roll out data services this year but according to an analysis by Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, data speeds may be painfully slow initially. T-Mobile never said that satellite services would match or exceed cellular services. Instead, they are intended as a fallback option for when its own network isn't available. Universidad Politecnica de Madrid used crowdsourced mobile network data provided by Weplan Analytics to analyze the capabilities, limitations, and future prospects of the feature.
The data spans from October 2024, which was when the satellite feature was launched in areas impacted by hurricanes, to April 2025. The report established a clear correlation between the number of satellites in orbit and the expansion of the coverage, particularly in areas not served adequately by land-based networks, such as national parks and sparsely populated areas. The paper has also revealed that direct-to-cellular signals were stable over the analyzed period and the network was not congested, seemingly because usage was limited to SMS during that time. That said, since the signal strength is lower compared to LTE, a phone's battery may deplete faster when it's connected to a satellite.
The researchers used Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise Ratio (SINR) to conclude that T-Mobile and SpaceX's data service will offer speeds of 4 Mbps outdoors, which will only be enough for basic connectivity needs in remote areas.
—Universidad Politecnica de Madrid The speed could increase to up to 24 Mbps in the future, considering the FCC updated the out-of-band emissions limits for T-Mobile in March. TMF Associates's Tim Farrar points out that "the paper [incorrectly] assumes 10dB SINR improvement to calculate the higher theoretical capacity," so 24 Mbps is a very optimistic and possibly unrealistic theoretical maximum speed.
—Universidad Politecnica de Madrid
SpaceX CEO had hinted at a peak download speed of 17Mbps in 2024
All in all, T-Mobile 's satellite service is still nothing short of impressive, especially considering that it's the only carrier in the US to have deployed the feature at a large scale. As far as data speeds are concerned, they were never expected to match 4G or 5G, with an exec revealing in March that data services would be low-impact. Switch to Total 5G+ Unlimited 3-Month plan or Total 5G Unlimited and get a free iPhone.
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