Elon Musk’s SpaceX has conscionable acquired up to 14MHz of paired spectrum successful the 800MHz set nationwide successful the US, from Grain Management. Musk says this is "the past captious portion of the spectrum puzzle needed for SpaceX to supply implicit telephone sum successful America". So the purpose present is clear. Use Starlink satellites to supply mobile telephone sum outdoors, and this 800MHz spectrum to supply indoor coverage.
Most existing smartphones already enactment this band. Starlink Mobile volition besides usage its existing planetary 2GHz mid-band spectrum for high-speed, high-capacity sum successful the US (mainly outdoors). The institution plans to brace its satellites with ground-based femtocells to supply 5G mobile coverage.
It says that erstwhile it receives regulatory support for this latest spectrum acquisition, it volition "deploy a flexible architecture" combining its "satellite-to-mobile constellation successful abstraction with an precocious terrestrial deployment that tin seamlessly link devices everywhere".
When that happens, Starlink Mobile volition beryllium a nonstop rival to AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, with amended sum than each of them outdoors, particularly successful agrarian and traditionally underserved areas. For this service, SpaceX received support from the FCC to deploy 15,000 next-generation satellites.
The 800MHz spectrum SpaceX conscionable acquired originated astatine T-Mobile, which sold it to Grain Management successful August successful speech for the latter’s 600MHz spectrum licenses and $2.9 cardinal successful cash.
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