Count fires continue to ravage the Los Angeles area, T-Mobile and SpaceX announced on Thursday evening that they will open Starlink coverage for those who need it.
“Today T-Mobile and Starlink have opened T-Mobile Starlink Direct-to-Cellular service in affected areas of Southern California to deliver wireless emergency alerts and SMS and enable 911 texting,” the wireless said carrier. “While SpaceX's direct-to-cell constellation has not yet been fully deployed, we are once again temporarily making this early test version available for the people who need it most.”
The carrier said its network is “holding up strong” and that it “has also restored nearly half of the sites affected by the commercial power outage.”
“As conditions safely allow, our teams are assessing affected sites in Altadena, Duarte, Calabasas, Malibu, Fillmore and Agoura Hills, and are continuing to deploy and refuel portable generators at sites until to restore commercial electricity.”
The Los Angeles fires are the latest deployment of a new satellite feature to keep its users connected during natural disasters. It previously enabled the service in response to Hurricanes Milton and Helene last year.
As was the case with the storms, texting using satellite is limited to T-Mobile users with “supported phones.” However, wireless emergency and evacuation alerts can be sent over satellites to anyone in the affected areas regardless of their wireless carrier.
Again it's worth noting that this is SMS, or traditional text messaging, and is done through your phone's regular messages app. It won't work with internet-based messaging services or apps like iMessage, WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. T-Mobile tells CNET that supported devices include “most” Android phones and iPhones older than the iPhone 14 series.
Apple users with an iPhone 14 (or later) running iOS 18 can also send iMessages, regardless of carrier, via satellite in places they don't have coverage thanks Apple's partnership with satellite company Globalstar. T-Mobile says users with those iPhones will use Apple's satellite services and not SpaceX's Starlink.
Although it has used the service in emergency situations, the Los Angeles deployment comes shortly after T-Mobile and SpaceX announced that they will begin beta testing the service this year and registration opened.
Watch this: Apple vs. Google: Satellite Emergency Features Compared
