T-Mobile has officially announced the nationwide launch date for its Starlink Direct to Cell satellite service — mark your calendars for July 23. The service, developed in partnership with SpaceX’s Starlink, promises to connect even the most remote parts of the U.S. to cover up to 500,000 square miles of previously unreachable terrain, including national parks, deserts, and rural dead zones.
First introduced as a beta earlier this year, T-Mobile’s satellite texting service is now going mainstream, and in a groundbreaking move, it will also be available to customers of other carriers. At launch, the Direct to Cell feature will support text messaging on both Android and iOS, with data-based connectivity scheduled to roll out starting October 1.
According to T-Mobile, the beta program has already been a major success. Over 1.8 million users signed up and collectively sent more than one million satellite text messages from areas with no terrestrial cell coverage. Perhaps even more telling: users received three times more messages than they sent, suggesting the service reliably maintained a connection even without the user deliberately trying to.
T-Mobile’s satellite-to-phone integration works without requiring any special hardware or external antennas; it automatically connects via satellite when traditional towers aren’t in range. This seamless failover is supported on most modern smartphones and is a big win for emergency use cases and rural communities long underserved by conventional mobile networks.
While the July launch will focus on texting, adding data in October will make Starlink’s Direct to Cell a serious contender in reshaping the wireless landscape, especially for outdoor adventurers, farmers, and first responders.
You can register for early access to Starlink Direct to Cell before the beta window closes via T-Mobile’s official website.
