My Prior Experience
Last July I had been added to the open T-mobile Starlink (T-Satellite) Beta Test. This was perfect for my thru-hike of Pacific Northwest Trail, which would allow me to freely test out the T-mobile Starlink connection and see how it might differ from having an inReach, and if it might replace my inReach. My conclusion at the time was that starlink was absolutely junk service.
It would take 10+ minutes for my phone to find a satellite, if it found one at all, and was just rapidly burning through my phone’s battery life without being able to get text messages out. I decided that this was a liability in the backcountry compared to a dedicated inReach.
After the 3 month beta test was up, I was not planning to renew/start paying for the service. Unbeknownst to me, however, T-mobile started to bill me for the service using a credit card I hadn’t thought I had given them (also at a weirdly lagged schedule, so I didn’t notice). I am not happy that they did this.
This past March I jumped on the Hayduke trail. In preparation for the HDT, I learned that I had been getting billed for the T-mobile Starlink service I no longer thought I had. Rather than cancelling it then and there, I decided to keep it for the HDT and see if it would perform any better at lower lattitudes. I have since discontinued the service.
My Updated Experience
It turns out that when you’re not in the northern-most latitudes of the U.S., T-mobile Starlink actually connects pretty quickly and works!
- Connection time to a starlink satellite in Utah was quick and reliable. It would take about 1-2 minutes to find a satellite to then allow me to start texting
- The connectivity was better than my inReach
- I was not able to see satellites from deep canyons (my inReach also had problems communicating out, but would eventually get there and not kill my phone battery doing so)
- Battery life and performance are better when you establish connection to the satellites (less battery drain than I experienced on the PNT).
How Starlink T-mobile Works
Starlink T-mobile uses a normal cellphone data communication channel, for the most part. It’s a restricted/highly throttled service, so there are limitations and latency issues abound, including what “data services” can be accessed. What this means:
- You can send data text messages, not SMS messages.
- You can use a select number of apps that download/receive data. This works well for low-bandwidth applications, like weather apps (specifically accuweather, which has an arrangemnt with SpaceX).
- You may very, very slowly be able to see some mapping tiles on map apps, but this will probably kill your phone’s battery, so really isn’t usable.
When you signup for the service, you will get an e-sim from T-mobile. Assuming your phone supports more than one e-sim, you just add this second telephone number to your phone. I was able to toggle that e-sim on/off when I wanted to use the Starlink T-mobile service. If you have it toggled on all the time, you will burn through more phone battery.
In general, you’re going to be sending RCS messages through the service (I guess iMessages if you’re on iPhone), or occasionally getting some weather updates with AccuWeather. Because the T-mobile Starlink signal is a data channel, it means that you can text through your normal phone number using RCS. So for me, my normal phone number is through Verizon. The Starlink satellite connection is used to establish the data channel with the Verizon servers that then handle the text messaging through my Verizon phone number.
However, because it’s a data channel, this means you cannot send SMS messages. This also means that you probably will not receive prior text messages from anyone that has sent a text message to you while you were in airplane mode. You can really only use this service to do concurrent, real-time text messaging with individuals.
I do not find that a very compelling service, compared to the inReach. Many folks also feel like you should not be messaging a bunch of individuals while out in the backcountry. I largely agree. The exception is for when I’m changing trip plans, and want to figure out some trip planning logistics while on trail.
Most importantly, however, because you are using a data channel for texting with T-Satellite: you can text with Gemini to answer some questions you might have while on trail, without relying on a real friend/loved one to be playing full support roles all the time.
The reason to consider getting T-Mobile Starlink for the backcountry: GenAI?
If you are using google messages as your messaging app, google built-in functionality to effectively do RCS texting with Gemini. That means you now have the world’s repository of stolen information at your fingertips, filtered through some statistical algorithms that might lie to you, act as a sycophant, and makeup information.
For all of the drawbacks and the understood limitations of GenAI models, however, it can be truly useful to have GenAI at your fingertips. For instance, I was dealing with some foot/achilles issues, and was able to quickly use Gemini through Google Messages as a PT for some diagnostic exercies to better assess how concerned I should be with the aches and pains I was experiencing (this is not a replacement for a real medical provider, but I found this to be very helpful). I was also able to use GenAI to find out if there were thrift stores, hardware stores, or other kinds of things in specific trail towns. Public transit information? I was able to find out about bus schedules out of Zion. I was also even able to ask about potential things to expect for upcoming sections of trail (“is it going to be sandy?”, “how do people typically talk about this section?”) — I really wouldn’t want to rely on this for life-and-death decision making however, as GenAI Is prone to lie and provide terrible advice.
Nonetheless, I found the ability to message GenAI to be surprisingly useful. I’m not sure if it was $10 per month useful, but given the other costs of thru-hiking, having the ability to just find things out from anywhere — assuming you’re significantly below the 49th parallel and not in a canyon — is pretty neat. If texting with GenAI has no appeal to you, then you’re definitely better off with just an inReach.
Overall Takeaways
- AccuWeather weather reports are probably better than inReach weather reports
- Texting Gemini is occasionally useful
- The satellite connectivity works pretty well if you have good line of site and aren’t too far north/in a bad coverage zone.
- I prefer my inReach as a tool, and the satellite coverage was a superfluous “nice to have” for texting with GenAI. It’s still not coming close to replacing my inReach.