Phone Companies Plan To Work Together To End Coverage Dead Zones

America’s big three phone service providers plan to work together to end a longtime frustration for mobile phone users — dead zones.AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon will launch a joint venture to boost coverage by using satellite-based technologies. The focus will be addressing coverage gaps in rural and remote areas where traditional cell networks have limited or no service. The venture will accelerate direct-to-device satellite connectivity.Once the agreement is finalized, the companies plan to pool limited spectrum resources to increase capacity, improve the customer experience, and help satellite providers reach more customers through a unified platform.“Our goal is to make staying connected simple, no matter where you are — on a rural highway, in a national park, on a boat, or during an emergency,” AT&T’s chairman and chief executive officer, John Stankey said in a release.The companies are already working independently with satellite companies. T-Mobile has teamed up with Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starlink satellite service. AT&T and Verizon have agreements with AST SpaceMobile. The satellite company said it was happy to see the phone service providers working together and hopes it will help grow its global network in low Earth orbit. The joint venture hopes to create a unified system that will provide a better and more consistent customer experience across the industry. “This partnership will also make it easier for satellite operators to deliver a broader range of direct-to-device experiences and help accelerate innovation across the wireless and satellite industries,” T-Mobile’s president and chief executive officer, Srini Gopalan, said.It was unclear what regulatory scrutiny the joint venture could face. Tech analyst Carolina Milanesi said regulators could question the deal. “The claim that this increases competition for satellite providers gets the dynamic backwards. A unified buyer concentrates demand,” Ms. Milanesi said in an X post. “Whether regulators read it the same way is the next test.”Industry analyst Will Townsend called the joint venture unconventional and said it a “defensive move” by the carriers to mitigate the impact of satellite or other airborne platforms that may want to compete directly with their traditional businesses.The government is already pushing to advance direct-to-device service. On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission announced that the agency approved EchoStar’s sale of approximately 65 megahertz of spectrum to SpaceX and an additional 50 megahertz to AT&T. Chairman Brendan Carr said the sale will help offer new high-speed offerings direct to smartphones from low Earth orbit satellites.American Tower Corporation’s executive vice president, Rodney Smith, said the satellite service is not a threat to terrestrial networks but a complementary technology. “The satellites do a really good job of reaching into hard-to-cover areas,” Mr. Smith said in a statement. “It is not an equivalent service in terms of the capacity or the speeds that you get in the terrestrial network.”Mr. Smith says the satellite companies don’t have the spectrum or the capacity to cover America’s large population or even any of the major cities or suburban areas. “It’s not possible,” Mr. Smith said. “There are limitations to how many subscribers and what can be going through the satellite arrays.”

Phone Companies Plan To Work Together To End Coverage Dead Zones

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