Telstra testing text services for isolated communities using Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites

The nation’s largest telco is working with Elon Musk’s Starlink to allow rural Australian customers in isolated areas to send text messages via satellites.

Australia’s largest telco is set to launch direct-to-handset services via satellite, aiming to lift the connectivity of rural Australians with the ability to send text messages from their smart phones almost anywhere in the country.

Telstra is “testing and refining” the capability via Starlink, a constellation of satellites operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The telco is the second in Australia to announce its entry into direct-to-handset satellite communications market, following Optus last year which had promised to deliver text messages via Satellite in late 2024 but failed to meet the timeline.

The new deal would allow Telstra customers to send a text message from almost anywhere in Australia providing they had a direct line of sight to the sky, said Shailin Sehgal, Telstra Group executive of global network and technology.

“This new technology is particularly relevant for Telstra customers that live or travel outside our leading mobile network in regional and remote parts of the country,” he said.

Mr Sehgal said Telstra was attempting to stay ahead of global trends and would continue to partner with global companies to ensure its technology was competitive.

“Satellite-to-Mobile is still an emerging technology and, together with Starlink, we have the best engineering minds collaborating on how satellite and mobile technology can work together to pioneer a new connectivity option for Australians,” he said.

Australian telcos are increasingly looking to the skies to ramp up their population coverage across the country, with most confident satellites can eliminate coverage dead zones.

Mr Sehgal said Telstra had 99.7 per cent population coverage and about 1 million square kilometres more than its nearest competitor.

“But, Australia’s landmass is vast and there will always be large areas where mobile and fixed networks do not reach, and this is where satellite technology will play a complementary role to our existing networks,” he said.

You cell phone in New Zealand now works anywhere! https://t.co/p27rOA1gtq

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2024

Direct-to-handset connectivity was once considered unviable via smartphones but has over the past few years come closer to reality, with pilots being run across the country by Telstra and Optus.

Australian telcos have been fiercely competitive when it came to adopting satellite connectivity with both Telstra and Optus having signed partnerships with Starlink to onsell the company’s satellite internet services, providing connectivity and hardware via the Elon Musk-run company.

Telstra became the first telco in the world to on-sell voice and broadband services via Starlink last year.

While Optus has gone all-in on satellite services taking on the more lucrative enterprise market, selling plans which cost as much as $7521 per month, offering mobile solutions for cans and vans via satellite with a latency of less than 99 milliseconds.

But a New Zealand telco has beat both Telstra and Optus in offering the services. One NZ launched direct-to-handset services via Starlink in December last year, leveraging a constellation of about 300 satellites operating in lower earth orbit (LEO).

That service could take as long as 10 minutes for text messages to arrive but the telco said most would be sent and received within three minutes.

It is understood there are some issues with different phone manufacturers and satellite use, with the service initially available on a handful of Android devices including Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip6, Galaxy Z Fold6, Galaxy S24 Ultra and Oppo’s Find X8 Pro at launch.

Similarly, US telco T Mobile has also opened a beta with Starlink in the US, allowing some customers to be among the first in the country to use its direct-to-handset satellite services.

Originally published as Telstra testing text services for isolated communities using Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites