ws/un-carrier/t-mobile-takes-coverage-above-and-beyond-with-spacex - - - This was announced in August 2022 and will be launched in 2023. In the United States, an area of around 500,000 square miles does not have wireless coverage, including national parks, deserts, and mountainous regions. In addition, oceans and large lakes also have dead zones. T-Mobile's approach will allow current smartphones on its network to be able to use the satellite service when it is launched 5G and Satellite Communications in 2023. Initially, under the Coverage Beyond offering (https://www.t-mobile.com/news/ un-carrier/coveragebeyond), consumers will have text message/SMS coverage and, later, voice and data will be rolled out. In-flight coverage for text and SMS is part of this initiative as well. Earlier-generation solutions for satellite phones were quite expensive. See Verizon offerings based on Immarsat and Iridium here: https ://www.vzwsatellite.com/. These used to cost about $6-$9 per minute. AT&T is working with a company called OneWeb on LEO-based SATCOM technology to extend the reach of its TNs. AT&T has an extensive fiber network in the US with 2.5 million business customer locations and another 9 million within 1,000 feet of its fiber network. However, what about all the remaining business customers that are not within this reach? That is where the OneWeb relationship enters the picture, with over 500 LEO satellites today (https://about.att.com/story/2021/ att_oneweb.html). OneWeb is also working with British Telecom (BT). Likewise, Eutelsat is working with Deutsche Telekom and Gruppo TIM on similar lines. The holy grail of satellite broadband would be the backward compatibility of satellite communication to work with existing smartphones. Imagine, with one call to the customer services department of your cellular provider, you could enable satellite connectivity on your current smartphone without exorbitant additional costs! Let us next look at the Global Positioning System (GPS). The Global Positioning System We are famil