Latest news with #Starlink-powered
Phone Arena
29-07-2025
- Phone Arena
T-Mobile has silently enabled a new feature for Samsung and Motorola users
A phone on T-Mobile's network connected to Starlink. | Image Credit - PCMag T-Mobile 's Starlink-powered T-Satellite feature isn't meant to replace terrestrial service. It's a good fallback option for when communication systems fail or when you veer out to an area with no cellular service. Until recently, only texting was supported, but now the company has also activated Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). 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 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 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 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.
Canada News.Net
28-07-2025
- Business
- Canada News.Net
Starlink hit by hours-long outage, raising concerns over resilience
HAWTHORNE, California: Elon Musk's Starlink, known for its reliability and rapid global expansion, faced a rare and widespread disruption on July 24 when an internal software failure took the satellite internet network offline for tens of thousands of users around the world. The outage, which began around 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT), triggered more than 61,000 reports on Downdetector, a website that tracks service interruptions. The disruption affected users across the U.S. and Europe and lasted roughly 2.5 hours. Starlink, which has over six million users in approximately 140 countries and territories, acknowledged the issue on its X account and said it was "actively implementing a solution." The company later confirmed the service had resumed. Michael Nicolls, vice president of Starlink Engineering, said the cause was a failure of "key internal software services that operate the core network." He apologized for the disruption and said efforts were underway to identify and fix the root cause. Elon Musk also apologized on X, writing: "Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy the root cause to ensure it doesn't happen again." The failure marked one of Starlink's largest-ever outages and sparked questions about the satellite system's resilience. The system has become increasingly critical for global connectivity in underserved regions. Doug Madory, an analyst at internet monitoring firm Kentik, described the incident as "likely the longest outage ever for Starlink" since it became a major player in the internet services space. The scale of the disruption led some experts to speculate on whether it was triggered by a faulty update or possibly even a cyberattack. "I'd speculate this is a bad software update, not entirely dissimilar to the CrowdStrike mess with Windows last year, or a cyberattack," said Gregory Falco, director of a space and cybersecurity lab at Cornell University. While no evidence has surfaced suggesting malicious activity, the failure raises concerns as SpaceX expands Starlink's scope. The company is launching larger satellites as part of a partnership with T-Mobile to offer direct-to-cell services, including emergency messaging from rural areas. Since 2020, SpaceX has launched more than 8,000 Starlink satellites, creating a vast constellation in low-Earth orbit that provides internet access to both consumers and critical sectors such as military and maritime operations. It remains unclear whether the outage impacted Starlink-powered services under SpaceX's Starshield unit, which holds major contracts with the U.S. government and military. While service was quickly restored, the rare failure highlights how even the most advanced networks can falter, and just how dependent the world has become on space-based connectivity.
Euronews
25-07-2025
- Business
- Euronews
Elon Musk's Starlink network hit with worldwide internet outage
Elon Musk's Starlink network is experiencing a worldwide outage, which has left thousands of users without internet, according to reports. Reports of issues began on Thursday at around 9 pm CET. Musk wrote on X six hours after the reports of the outage that the network issue had been resolved and that service had been restored. "The network issue has been resolved, and Starlink service has been restored. We understand how important connectivity is and apologise for the disruption," he wrote. However, some Starlink users wrote on the site Down Detector that their network was still down on Friday morning. No reason has been given for the outage. More than 60,000 reports of issues were reported on Down Detector, with the majority of users saying there was a 'total blackout'. Starlink users on X reported issues from Europe, the United States, Africa, Asia, and Australia. This included reports on Down Detector from Colombia, Sardinia in Italy, Stockholm in Sweden, and New Hampshire in the US. Many of them said that their connections are offline, and an error message reads that there is 'no healthy upstream'. Musk wrote on X "Service will be restored shortly. Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy root cause to ensure it doesn't happen again," Musk wrote on X. For some countries and governments, such as Ukraine's army, they rely on Starlink for internet access. It is unclear how they will be affected. What is Starlink? Starlink is a telecommunications provider that is part of Musk's SpaceX. The satellite internet constellation gives global mobile broadband to around 130 countries and territories. The company plans to have 12,000 satellites and aims to have more than 34,000 eventually. Earlier on Thursday, SpaceX said its direct-to-cell-phone service was growing fast, which came a day after an announcement that T-Mobile's Starlink-powered satellite service rolled out to the public. It is unclear whether the T-Satellite service was affected by or involved in the outage.
NBC News
25-07-2025
- Business
- NBC News
Musk's Starlink hit with hours-long outage after rollout of T-Mobile satellite service
Elon Musk 's satellite internet service Starlink said it had a 'network outage' on Thursday. The company said it was working on a solution. Downdetector, a site that logs issues. Starlink is owned and operated by SpaceX, which is also run by Musk. At 4:30 p.m. ET, Musk apologized for the outage on X and said, 'Service will be restored shortly.' At 6:23 p.m. ET, SpaceX's vice president of Starlink engineering, Michael Nicolls, said in an X post that service 'has now mostly recovered from the network outage, which lasted approximately 2.5 hours.' service was fully restored. Musk posted earlier Thursday that the company's direct-to- cell-phone service was 'growing fast' following the announcement that T-Mobile 's Starlink-powered satellite service was available to the public. T-Mobile said the T-Satellite service was built to keep phones connected 'in places no carrier towers can reach.' Starlink didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Starlink internet speeds and reliability decrease with popularity, a recent study found. It wasn't immediately clear if the T-Satellite service was affected by or involved in the outage. Musk's social media site X, which he purchased as Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, has been hit with a number of outages in the past months. The site had disruptions in early July. During another outage in May, Musk said that 'major operational improvements need to be made.'
The Verge
25-07-2025
- The Verge
Starlink's satellite internet is back online after a massive outage
Starlink users reported they couldn't connect to SpaceX's satellite internet service for a few hours on Thursday afternoon before service was eventually restored. Widespread Starlink outages, like the ones we reported on in 2022 and 2023, have been rare, and this appears to be the first one in 2025. The outage began around 3:15PM ET or so, with users receiving error messages saying there is 'no healthy upstream.' Starlink posted a message on X at 4:05PM ET: 'Starlink is currently in a network outage and we are actively implementing a solution. We appreciate your patience, we'll share an update once this issue is resolved.' At 6:23PM ET, Starlink engineering VP Michael Nicolls followed that up with a message saying that after a 2.5-hour outage, the network has 'mostly recovered.' 'The outage was due to failure of key internal software services that operate the core network,' writes Nicolls, without going into specific detail. According to The Kyiv Independent, the outage affected Ukrainian troops who rely on Starlink terminals, citing a Telegram message from the military saying Starlink is down across the entire front. The military now says its connections are back online after going down for about 150 minutes, 'the longest in the war.' T-Mobile just opened its Starlink-powered T-Satellite messaging service to everyone yesterday, but we haven't seen any updates on its status. During the outage, the global connectivity trackers at NetBlocks reported that overall Starlink connectivity dropped to '16 percent of ordinary levels.' Update, July 24th: Added information from the Ukrainian military and NetBlocks, and updated to note that service has been restored. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Richard Lawler Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Science Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Space Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All SpaceX
