More than 500,000 square miles of land not currently reached by cell towers could soon have access to vital emergency alerts via Starlink satellites.
T-Mobile has partnered with SpaceX to send the first successful wireless emergency alert in the U.S. without ground-based cell towers, the wireless network operator announced this week.
On Sept. 5 at 8:13 p.m. ET, emergency dispatchers sent a test message about a hypothetical evacuation order to a specific geographic area, which was received by a T-Mobile smartphone, according to the press release issued Wednesday.
The warning traveled 350 kilometers into space to one of more than 175 Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit and back to the planet.
“In total, it took emergency responders just seconds to queue an emergency message and transmit that message to users on the ground via Starlink satellites,” the press release said.
The company said it would continue testing the service before commercial launch, but did not provide a timeline.
Verizon and AT&T also expand the reach of alerts
The success paves the way for T-Mobile and other wireless carriers such as Verizon and AT&T to send critical alerts to sparsely populated, mountainous and uninhabitable areas across the country, the press release said.
According to T-Mobile, people who previously did not have access to such alerts will soon be able to receive warnings about disasters such as fires, tornadoes and hurricanes.
“This is one of those days when, as the CEO of a wireless company, I have to pause for a moment and think about how technological advances and the work we do really impact life-and-death situations,” T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said in the press release.
The company said the process is particularly helpful in situations like the 2018 Camp Fire, which burned more than 150,000 acres of land in Northern California, killed 86 people and destroyed 66 cell towers.
The Starlink satellites ensure communication with first responders or relatives if terrestrial mobile reception fails.
The company said it will add more Starlink satellites to expand cellular coverage over the next few months through several planned SpaceX launches.
