Telstra taps Starlink to bring Satellite Text Messaging to Australians

Telstra has announced today they’ve begun a collaboration with SpaceX’s Starlink, testing out satellite to text services to cover more area.

The announcement builds on Telstra’s previous collaboration with Starlink, which saw Telstra as the first Telco to deliver voice-only and voice plus broadband to rural and remote customers.

This new collaboration will test the Satellite-to-Mobile technology, also known as direct to handset to allow customers to send text messages via Satellite, giving them vastly more coverage area to work in.

The broad access to the Starlink satellites across the sky in Australia will ‘enable Telstra customers to send and receive SMS’s on a compatible mobile phone in most parts of Australia where there is a direct line of sight to the sky’ says Telstra Group Executive of Global Network and Technology, Shailin Sehgal

Telstra sees satellite technology as playing a complementary role in their existing networks, which covers an area of 3 million square kilometres and reaching 99.7% of the Australian population.  Mr Sehgal said

“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.”

The new technology will be hugely relevant for Telstra customers that live or travel in regional and remote parts of Australia with the accessibility extending their coverage areas further. 

At this stage there’s no word on when the Satellite-to-Mobile technology will launch, but we’re keen to check it out when it does.