Telecoms are rapidly upping their commitments to satellite communications (SATCOM) due to the technology’s benefits over traditional cellular like staying connected anywhere, consistent connections and global reach.
Another benefit, emergency alert services, has led American telecom T-Mobile to conduct its first wireless emergency alert test via satellite.
Natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and fires trigger wireless emergency alerts. However, in some zones where coverage is spotty or non-existent, users do not receive them. T-Mobile’s successful SATCOM wireless emergency alert test could allow users in lightly populated, mountainous and uninhabitable land across the country to receive these alerts.
The test
T-Mobile initiated the test alert on Sept. 5, 2024, and was sent 217 miles into space where it was received by one of more than 175 Starlink direct-to-smartphone satellites in low earth orbit.
The alert then was broadcast to a geographic aera impacted by a hypothetical evacuation notice. The alert was received by T-Mobile smartphones in the area. The test took emergency operators just seconds to queue up the message and deliver it via Starlink satellites to users on the ground.
T-Mobile said it is collaborating with Starlink on testing additional SATCOM services as SpaceX will be launching more satellites into orbit in the coming months to further bring satellite coverage across the U.S.
Camp Fire
T-Mobile used the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California as an example of where SATCOM emergency alerts could have been used to help with the emergency alerts in the region, which had spotty cellular connections. The disaster led to more than 52,000 people being evacuated, 19,000 structures destroyed and 86 lives lost.
Many of the residents in Paradise, California, and other local areas had no access to emergency alerts due to the lack of wireless service plus the fires tool out 17 cell towers in the first day of the fire and a total of 66 towers during the first two weeks of the fire.
If SATCOM emergency services was available, it may have saved lives, T-Mobile suggested.
