Elon Musk, the visionary leader and business tycoon called SpaceX alien-level technology recently. Musk was referring to Starlink’s Direct-to-Cell (DTC) service, which is now expanding globally. Starlink is owned by SpaceX, and it has been deploying DTC satellites for some time now. The satellite communications (satcom) service provider recently took help from SpaceX to launch 12 new DTC satellites to provide reliable text services.
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The DTC service will work with LTE phones without any hardware upgrade or need for an app. Users can just directly make use of the service and send texts to other people. Major telecom operators globally have partnered with Starlink to offer its services to their customers. Some of the operators which have already partnered with Starlink are T-Mobile (USA), Rogers (Canada), One NZ (New Zealand), KDDI (Japan), Optus (Australia), Entel (Chile), Entel (Peru), and Salt (Switzerland).
In the coming year, Starlink will also allow users to make calls and consume data (internet) with its DTC service. At the moment it is only meant for texts. Starlink is still in the deployment stage of DTC satellites. In the near future, more telecom operators are expected to partner with Starlink for the DTC service.
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Starlink has also confirmed that starting 2025, it will also offer IoT (Internet of Things) connectivity support with the DTC service.
Apart from the DTC service, Starlink is also trying to make sure it can start its services soon in India. The company is now ready to comply with the security norms of the Indian government. However, in India, the debate is around how the satellite spectrum will be allocated to the satcom players, and that needs to be settled before anything else. Elon Musk recently showed appreciation for the decision of the Indian government to allocate satellite spectrum administratively to the satcom players. What will really happen at the end of the day is something we will have to wait for.
