Xfinity Cellular and Spectrum Cellular now supply emergency satellite tv for pc messaging providers for choose Android smartphones. Non-emergency SMS satellite tv for pc messaging will arrive at a later date.

The satellite tv for pc messaging service will act as a fallback when clients should not have entry to a mobile or Wi-Fi community. It might present security or peace of thoughts for purchasers who dwell or work in rural areas, and it’ll typically improve protection in maritime settings. Plus, it has the potential to avoid wasting lives when pure disasters take down terrestrial mobile infrastructure.

Skylo, which just lately introduced a partnership with Verizon, is offering the satellite tv for pc service for Constitution and Comcast. There’s only one downside—Skylo’s satellites are in geostationary orbit roughly 22,000 miles above Earth’s floor. And, on the time of writing, solely Samsung Galaxy S25 and Google Pixel 9 collection gadgets are able to connecting to Skylo’s geostationary satellite tv for pc service. If you wish to use the service and not using a appropriate cellphone, you should purchase a satellite networking adapter.

So, that is very totally different from the Starlink direct-to-cell service that T-Mobile is testing. The Starlink direct-to-cell platform operates in LEO (low Earth orbit) a pair hundred miles from our planet’s floor and behaves like an orbital cell tower, which means that all smartphones, not simply these with specialised modems, can connect with it.

However geostationary satellite tv for pc connectivity has its perks. Most LEO satellites circle the planet about 16 instances every day, which makes connectivity fairly troublesome—you want tens of hundreds of LEO satellites and a multitude of Earth-based infrastructure to construct a dependable satellite-cellular community. Geostationary satellites are comparatively easy. As an alternative of “circling” the Earth, they comply with its rotation to take care of a set place over a continent or nation. A geostationary satellite tv for pc hovering over North America will not drift over to a distinct continent, it’s going to keep above North America.

This “stationary” positioning, together with the intense distance of geostationary satellites from Earth’s floor (distance will increase vary), significantly reduces the necessity for an costly and sophisticated “satellite tv for pc constellation.” The preliminary prices and long-term upkeep of Skylo are decrease than that of LEO options like Starlink.

After all, distance creates latency, and geostationary connectivity is fairly sluggish. Whereas an LEO service like Starlink direct-to-cell could also be an honest various to terrestrial mobile networking, geostationary choices like Skylo greatest function a “final resort” when extra favorable connectivity strategies are unavailable. That is why Verizon, regardless of its use of Skylo, remains to be developing LEO satellite-cellular infrastructure for its community. (Comcast Business partnered with Starlink final yr however hasn’t introduced any super-ambitious satellite-cellular targets.)

I ought to level out that Google and Apple already present emergency satellite tv for pc messaging on their latest smartphones. In the event you personal a cellphone with this performance, there’s actually no purpose to change carriers. And, in any case, most carriers are working to implement satellite-cellular service—that is one thing that ought to be pretty customary earlier than the tip of the last decade, though carriers and smartphone producers could pursue differing types of satellite tv for pc connectivity. Some MVNOs could not use LEO satellites as a consequence of price or availability, for instance.

All Xfinity Cellular and Spectrum Cellular clients with appropriate Galaxy S25 or Pixel 9 smartphones can entry emergency satellite tv for pc texting. Simply know that the carriers’ satellite tv for pc service is at the moment restricted to emergency messaging. Satellite tv for pc-based SMS textual content messaging will arrive within the close to future, in keeping with Comcast and Constitution.

Supply: Charter & Comcast by way of The Verge