T - Mobile / Starlink: It is here

Now if you can get some smart-ass wiz kid to write a text-to-speech app to interface with the texting app... the wife has one built into her Chevy hands-free audio system. At least that would take some of the clunkiness out of the texting part - and make it feel more like a voice conversation. I'm hooked on that crap... "Hey Google" and "Hey Alexa" have become and integral part of my vocabulary! :rolleyes:

My Android Auto does that. I can send & receive texts without touching a button. With my new Car Play receiver, I can now do that in the RV. It works exactly like I was in the Navigator. The key is that it will be free. They do say it is only in areas where no cell service exist. Right now I don't know where I would go to test it.
 
Last week We bought the spousal unit a
Garmin montana 750i
So she'd have satellite if out of phone range when out in the thules.

It is the most ridiculous 1998 interface I've seen since
1998.
It is truly the wonkiest piece of crap I've seen since
Windows 98 days. It is truly, no exaggeration, the windows 98 interface.


Except that it seamlessly knows if the phone is out of range and connects to satellite automatically, it is totally worthless.

The map has street names wrong, shows streets that were never there heading through houses...roads proposed but not in place,
Proposed in the 1960's.
I've seen this map before. It's the original mapquest windows 98 map that was compiled in China from county records and many years of archaic usgs maps. It's the map that notoriously left off a city...maybe Milwaukee (I don't remember which large city).

We'll ignore the stupid part and just use the sos and sat signal part.
$15 a month.

I'll gladly pitch the bastard thing in the river upon Elon making a real portable sat phone.
 
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So full FCC approval is here, so the drums about dead spots for T Mobile customers will no longer be beaten.

https://www.androidpolice.com/t-mobiles-starlink-cell-coverage-just-got-full-fcc-approval/

It is of no surprise to me, that T mobile or Starlink has not tipped their hat on the catch. I am sure it has to cost more? If so; I have no intentions of buying, but at least those that find fault with T Mobile in the remote spots will be muted.
I don't get it: we have been using our cell phone via starlink for 3 years. We jut have the phone set for wifi calling. We do have t mobile have never had to do anything when in isolated. So what is the difference?
 
Last week We bought the spousal unit a
Garmin montana 750i
So she'd have satellite if out of phone range when out in the thules.

It is the most ridiculous 1998 interface I've seen since
1998.
It is truly the wonkiest piece of crap I've seen since
Windows 98 days. It is truly, no exaggeration, the windows 98 interface.


Except that it seamlessly knows if the phone is out of range and connects to satellite automatically, it is totally worthless.

The map has street names wrong, shows streets that were never there heading through houses...roads proposed but not in place,
Proposed in the 1960's.
I've seen this map before. It's the original mapquest windows 98 map that was compiled in China from county records and many years of archaic usgs maps. It's the map that notoriously left off a city...maybe Milwaukee (I don't remember which large city).

We'll ignore the stupid part and just use the sos and sat signal part.
$15 a month.

I'll gladly pitch the bastard thing in the river upon Elon making a real portable sat phone.

I agree that Garmin is falling behind in the tech wars. Their interface has always been wonky. It's time they invested in an interface similar to Google Maps... much more intuitive.

Our WV trip last summer I saved the geo coordinates of each campsite... I mean the actual pad we'd park on. It was easy in Google Maps because I could actually zoom in and literally see the power pedestal. Try that with Garmin... all you see is a green or amber tinted field.

Don't hold your breath on Elon releasing any sat phone of sorts. I don't think he's interested in phones. Although he IS a feller full of surprises...
 
We're sending the stupid thing back.
I'll buy a simple spot device instead.

That turd 750i has a whopping EIGHT MEG CAMERA.(I knew this when we bought it. I tell it here so you can see how wildly backwards garmin is.)
 
We're sending the stupid thing back.
I'll buy a simple spot device instead.

That turd 750i has a whopping EIGHT MEG CAMERA.(I knew this when we bought it. I tell it here so you can see how wildly backwards garmin is.)

It is a sad day when the Duck gets screwed. At least you can send it back.
 
I had about three hours of youtube research into it before I bought it.
I figured I could live with its quirks.
What I couldn't live with once I touched this turd and tried it for myself was the corporate disinterest in progressing past 2008 tech that is based on 1996 tech.

I will keep the case and screen guards I purchased because those were my fault and not the sellers.
I will be sending back the belt clip that has no distinct latch and it clips on with a less than quarter turn of a circular catch.
I brushed up against the counter edge in the kitchen to test the latch.
The unit unlatched itself and I caught it before it fell to the ground.

A brilliant, positively outstanding belt attachment with a dismal unthought, designed by somone who didn't know the purpose or use of the gps...gps mount.
It would be super great to mount something to a dash.
Totally unusable for any movement of any sort.

I haven't understood the whole garmin thing since Magellan 315.
You put up with it then because it was all there was in 1999(my first foray into handheld. I Was laptop, street atlas, and external gps before that)

This montana is based on that 315. It even looks like it.

These new satellite phones are going to kill these stupid stand alone gps companies.
They're dinosaurs now and about to become fossilized memories.
Pics are of my neighborhood. Only one of these streets exist and it is named two different things on two different zoom levels.


I was silly for paying attention to paid reviewers.
I thought they were skipping details because they were narrow minded and possibly just dumb people.

It was me being dumb.
I was dumb, but I won't be stupid.

Punchline:
Use the phone and apps you have now, wait a year until the new satellite phones comes around to buy something genuinely in the realm of the next quarter of this century. Do not buy some stupid vapid standalone gps that hasn't progressed in 10 or 20 years no matter what anyone tells you differently.

I don't think this is a hijack. I think I have told a tale of the gap between what some of you know and what is about to make what you know as valuable as a steam powered car.
Wait a year, then step up to the new gasoline power.
 

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I had about three hours of youtube research into it before I bought it.
I figured I could live with its quirks.
What I couldn't live with once I touched this turd and tried it for myself was the corporate disinterest in progressing past 2008 tech that is based on 1996 tech.

I will keep the case and screen guards I purchased because those were my fault and not the sellers.
I will be sending back the belt clip that has no distinct latch and it clips on with a less than quarter turn of a circular catch.
I brushed up against the counter edge in the kitchen to test the latch.
The unit unlatched itself and I caught it before it fell to the ground.

A brilliant, positively outstanding belt attachment with a dismal unthought, designed by somone who didn't know the purpose or use of the gps...gps mount.
It would be super great to mount something to a dash.
Totally unusable for any movement of any sort.

I haven't understood the whole garmin thing since Magellan 315.
You put up with it then because it was all there was in 1999(my first foray into handheld. I Was laptop, street atlas, and external gps before that)

This montana is based on that 315. It even looks like it.

These new satellite phones are going to kill these stupid stand alone gps companies.
They're dinosaurs now and about to become fossilized memories.
Pics are of my neighborhood. Only one of these streets exist and it is named two different things on two different zoom levels.


I was silly for paying attention to paid reviewers.
I thought they were skipping details because they were narrow minded and possibly just dumb people.

It was me being dumb.
I was dumb, but I won't be stupid.

Punchline:
Use the phone and apps you have now, wait a year until the new satellite phones comes around to buy something genuinely in the realm of the next quarter of this century. Do not buy some stupid vapid standalone gps that hasn't progressed in 10 or 20 years no matter what anyone tells you differently.

I don't think this is a hijack. I think I have told a tale of the gap between what some of you know and what is about to make what you know as valuable as a steam powered car.
Wait a year, then step up to the new gasoline power.


Amen our friend.
Agree

These new satellite phones are going to kill these stupid stand alone gps companies.
They're dinosaurs now and about to become fossilized memories.
Pics are of my neighborhood. Only one of these streets exist and it is named two different things on two different zoom levels.


Same reason me & rv / car family members will not purchase Garmin. Our phones have always gotten us to our destinations. Reason I cancelled Siriusxm.
I can download any music, etc to our phones.
Can't wait for Verizon satellite or back to t mobile!
 
We have sirius because it was $14 a year for five years.
We never have music in the rv and almost never in the cars.
We enjoy talking to each other too much to want to hear
Walk this way
Fir the fifth time in one day.
But at $14 a year it fills the spot held by
Almost never.
 
Last week We bought the spousal unit a
Garmin montana 750i
So she'd have satellite if out of phone range when out in the thules.

It is the most ridiculous 1998 interface I've seen since
1998.
It is truly the wonkiest piece of crap I've seen since
Windows 98 days. It is truly, no exaggeration, the windows 98 interface.


Except that it seamlessly knows if the phone is out of range and connects to satellite automatically, it is totally worthless.

The map has street names wrong, shows streets that were never there heading through houses...roads proposed but not in place,
Proposed in the 1960's.
I've seen this map before. It's the original mapquest windows 98 map that was compiled in China from county records and many years of archaic usgs maps. It's the map that notoriously left off a city...maybe Milwaukee (I don't remember which large city).

We'll ignore the stupid part and just use the sos and sat signal part.
$15 a month.

I'll gladly pitch the bastard thing in the river upon Elon making a real portable sat phone.

Ummmm, all GPS units connect to GPS satellites all the time with no need for cell connectivity. So what's the advantage of this GPS unit again?
 
We have sirius because it was $14 a year for five years.
We never have music in the rv and almost never in the cars.
We enjoy talking to each other too much to want to hear
Walk this way
Fir the fifth time in one day.
But at $14 a year it fills the spot held by
Almost never.

We love music & podcasts & talk to each other.
During travel when dogs sleeping we go classical piano.
Both multi-gen Australian labradoodles listened to piano since birth
 

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I don't get it: we have been using our cell phone via starlink for 3 years. We jut have the phone set for wifi calling. We do have t mobile have never had to do anything when in isolated. So what is the difference?

If you had asked me what's a henway, it would have been shorter :LOL:

But to your question...

Today you have to....
1. Have a 3rd party Internet Provider (Starlink)
2. Have a $300 - $500 antenna or whatever they cost
3. Pay an additional $150/mo or whatever they charge for the access to Satellite
4. Subject all phone calls to WiFi which exposes more security risks

Tomorrow based on T Mobile's Beta Program
1. None of the above will be true

With all of that said, you may have missed my greater point. I am making a mockery of the entire Beta program because I don't see ANY value. Being able to Text in Nowhere, USA is not on any lists I have. Not even my nice to have list. I only signed up because it is free. It would probably take me a year to find somewhere where I could actually use.


With that out of the way and related to your current setup. Remember when they had the HP Smart devices (Phones)? Not sure what they called the Smartphones back then? Anyway, I always had one, always paid cash for it and I NEVER had a data plan for any of mine. It drove AT&T crazy, because they hoodwinked customers to buying the data plans because most did not know how to go into the HP Smart Device and change settings so it would enable WifI. It was simple. Back then I did not need access to internet when driving to and from work, or if I was in a Wal Mart or Home Depot. My HP devices would always connect to WifI when I got or home or got to the office which was where I spent 90% of my time. I did it for years.

Here is the good part, when we bought our last brand new AT&T phones, after a long battle with many Supervisors; AT&T had ensured us we could connect those new phones to their network without a data plan. So we bought the new phones from AT&T and accepted the new plan. 1 hour later we get texts on both phones saying the Data Plan had been activated at $49.99/mo additional to our phone plan per phone. Not only would AT&T refuse to remove it, they said we could NOT go back to our original plan as it had been grandfathered. :facepalm:

So I don't like getting the shaft, my identity ain't neutral; so I had to fight back. I was desperate but I did something I had never done before. I walked into that Pink phone store crying like a baby :whistling: To my surprise, they told us that our brand new AT&T phones would work on their network since I had paid cash and owned outright. They also provided us with a plan that was about $40/mo cheaper than our previous grandfathered plan with AT&T, but here is the best part. The plan included unlimited data and unlimited text. We have that same T Mobile grandfathered plan today. At the time T Mobile to AT&T was like how Netflix use to be to Blockbuster.

T Mobile is King in mind, at least until they block my use of Home Internet in the RV while traveling. My last trip we used 250 GB on the road, and they never said a word. I expect to use about 350GB during Christmas & the New Year.
 
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Ummmm, all GPS units connect to GPS satellites all the time with no need for cell connectivity. So what's the advantage of this GPS unit again?

As a gps unit there is no reason to buy this 2008 piece of garbage.
But
It's an intelligent SPOT unit that allows you to send text and pictures and voice mail by satellite when a tower is out of reach.
$15 per month to ensure constant communication.
I don't see how I can trust them based on their incredibly archaic GPS stuff. If they promote that crap I'm not sure how they mispromote their sat comms.
Look at that ungodddly map. What will I get with the satellite service? Morse code?

Tmobile is very sketchy here.
Until last year it was nonexistent.
Verizon coverage was the only reason I bought verizon.

Our phones are owned and I'll switch to whoever does the sat hookup and has cell coverage for me.
We're wifi phone at home.
 
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Ummmm, all GPS units connect to GPS satellites all the time with no need for cell connectivity. So what's the advantage of this GPS unit again?

The GPS satellites just provide the receiving unit the current location via latitude and longitude. What the device does with that information is where the rubber meets the road. Duck is merely stating that the Garmin he purchased has outdated map data and an extremely poor HMI (Human Machine Interface).
 
The GPS satellites just provide the receiving unit the current location via latitude and longitude. What the device does with that information is where the rubber meets the road. Duck is merely stating that the Garmin he purchased has outdated map data and an extremely poor HMI (Human Machine Interface).

I got that. The question was the need for cell vs satellite connectivity? I didn't realize the connectivity he was referring to was for a messaging service built in to the device.
 
If you had asked me what's a henway, it would have been shorter :LOL:

But to your question...

Today you have to....
1. Have a 3rd party Internet Provider (Starlink)
2. Have a $300 - $500 antenna or whatever they cost
3. Pay an additional $150/mo or whatever they charge for the access to Satellite
4. Subject all phone calls to WiFi which exposes more security risks

Tomorrow based on T Mobile's Beta Program
1. None of the above will be true

With all of that said, you may have missed my greater point. I am making a mockery of the entire Beta program because I don't see ANY value. Being able to Text in Nowhere, USA is not on any lists I have. Not even my nice to have list. I only signed up because it is free. It would probably take me a year to find somewhere where I could actually use.


With that out of the way and related to your current setup. Remember when they had the HP Smart devices (Phones)? Not sure what they called the Smartphones back then? Anyway, I always had one, always paid cash for it and I NEVER had a data plan for any of mine. It drove AT&T crazy, because they hoodwinked customers to buying the data plans because most did not know how to go into the HP Smart Device and change settings so it would enable WifI. It was simple. Back then I did not need access to internet when driving to and from work, or if I was in a Wal Mart or Home Depot. My HP devices would always connect to WifI when I got or home or got to the office which was where I spent 90% of my time. I did it for years.

Here is the good part, when we bought our last brand new AT&T phones, after a long battle with many Supervisors; AT&T had ensured us we could connect those new phones to their network without a data plan. So we bought the new phones from AT&T and accepted the new plan. 1 hour later we get texts on both phones saying the Data Plan had been activated at $49.99/mo additional to our phone plan per phone. Not only would AT&T refuse to remove it, they said we could NOT go back to our original plan as it had been grandfathered. :facepalm:

So I don't like getting the shaft, my identity ain't neutral; so I had to fight back. I was desperate but I did something I had never done before. I walked into that Pink phone store crying like a baby :whistling: To my surprise, they told us that our brand new AT&T phones would work on their network since I had paid cash and owned outright. They also provided us with a plan that was about $40/mo cheaper than our previous grandfathered plan with AT&T, but here is the best part. The plan included unlimited data and unlimited text. We have that same T Mobile grandfathered plan today. At the time T Mobile to AT&T was like how Netflix use to be to Blockbuster.

T Mobile is King in mind, at least until they block my use of Home Internet in the RV while traveling. My last trip we used 250 GB on the road, and they never said a word. I expect to use about 350GB during Christmas & the New Year.

Everyone please keep me posted on the phone satellite test information. Our family around the 🌎 likes use at least texting that all is OK when we remote camp.
My sister in Montana now has liver cancer..65 years old
 
Everyone please keep me posted on the phone satellite test information. Our family around the 🌎 likes use at least texting that all is OK when we remote camp.
My sister in Montana now has liver cancer..65 years old

When does T-Mobile’s Starlink beta test begin?
We anticipate starting the beta test in early 2025.

Where will satellite coverage be available?
Satellite coverage will work almost everywhere in the US where traditional cell towers cannot provide coverage. During the beta test, performance may vary depending on several factors like location and number of people using the service simultaneously. Our partner SpaceX is launching satellites at a historic pace, and each new launch will make the service better.

When will you launch T-Mobile Starlink commercially?
We’ll get a lot of great feedback from customers in the beta test, and that will tell us when we’re ready to launch – which we expect to be sometime in 2025.​


They do plan on charging for it, but they don't have it figured out yet. I think it will launch with a dud. I will put it up there with paying extra to have international calls. They may find a range where some will add it and forget they even have it.

Now full blown internet may be a tad different, but who knows when that will come.
 
Well, now it's finally here - in BETA - available to everyone until it goes live. Pricing in the video. And will be available to all carriers' phones (for a price) when live.

 
$30 monthly... text only to start. T-Mobile supposedly will accept others without being forced to switch plans.

This rollout is essentially a replacement for the satellite "emergency" devices, intended to give text connectivity... but this is real time and two -way.
 

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