Google and ATT invest in Starlink rival for satellite-to-smartphone service

debounced , 5 months ago

i can sort of understand at&t being at&t as they continue to piss hundreds of millions away on subpar investments while continuing to bitch about being poor and needing government handouts to make the boo-boos hurt less, but what does google have to gain from this? and i could have swore that at some point it was mentioned starlink is/was going to use google data centers as PoPs for their ground stations, but maybe i'm miss remembering...

Tronn4 , 5 months ago

But I still don't have 5g reception a block from my house. Thanks att

lnxtx , 5 months ago

Yay, more space trash.

gregorum , 5 months ago

Google and AT&T

Dammit

Ensign_Crab , 5 months ago

I mean, if you want to guarantee that it's not something you can rely on...

robolemmy , 5 months ago

Google will cancel the project in 18 months. AT&T will take over google’s part of it and promise never to raise rates but then they’ll add a new kind of fee every 2-3 months until you’re basically buying them a new satellite every month.

tsonfeir , 5 months ago

And they use that satellite to expand in areas that aren’t yours.

werefreeatlast , 5 months ago

Welcome to SBC global, PacBell, AT&T, Google. What other names did this blob have? MaBell?

tsonfeir , 5 months ago

Right? Somehow that’s even worse than musky Elon.

EdibleFriend , 5 months ago

so Starlink already put over 5k up there with talks of taking that up to as many as 42k eventually. How much crap does ATT intend to put up there?

SinningStromgald , 5 months ago

Shhhh. That is future poor peoples problem and capitalism doesn't think about those people. Now, wouldn't you love to pay hundreds of dollars a month for the privilege of being able to surf the internet ANYWHERE in the world at lightning fast speeds? Doesn't that sound great? All the porn all the time. What could be better?

Revan343 , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

Well the starlink ones aren't going to be space trash-- they eventually fall out of orbit and burn up. Hopefully these go with the same plan

EdibleFriend , 5 months ago

The main issue ATM tho, from what I've heard, is what this huge amount of extra crap is doing to us studying space from the ground.

Revan343 , 5 months ago

There is that. The other issue which I ignored but is significant is the emissions from the rocket launches getting the satellites up there in the first place

Infinite , 5 months ago

Globally, rocket launches are something like 0.005% of the emissions of the airline industry.

hglman , 5 months ago

You need to orbit them low enough to experience drag if you want reasonable latency.

autotldr Bot , 5 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

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Google, AT&T, and Vodafone are investing $206.5 million in AST SpaceMobile, a Starlink competitor that plans to offer smartphone service from low-Earth-orbit satellites.

"Vodafone and AT&T have placed purchase orders for network equipment from AST SpaceMobile to support planned commercial service," the satellite company said.

Google has meanwhile "agreed to collaborate on product development, testing, and implementation plans for SpaceMobile network connectivity on Android and related devices."

They plan "to provide mobile broadband to unserved and underserved areas covered by the Leased Spectrum," the companies told the Federal Communications Commission in an application last year.

In April 2023, the companies announced that they completed the first two-way voice calls using AST SpaceMobile's test satellite with standard mobile phones.

In September 2023, AST SpaceMobile said it made "the first-ever 5G connection for voice and data between an everyday, unmodified smartphone and a satellite in space" and that it achieved a download rate of 14Mbps.

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