T-Mobile is making a bold move in the satellite connectivity space, announcing a price cut for its upcoming cellular Starlink service to just $10 per month across all carriers. Significant reduction from the previously announced rates of up to $20 comes as the company prepares for the official July launch.
“After gauging the incredible response from customers—including broader than expected interest from competitor’s customers—we’ve set our final launch pricing for T-Satellite at just $10 a month,” T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert revealed during Thursday’s earnings call.
This new pricing structure applies uniformly to T-Mobile customers as well as those using AT&T and Verizon, who can access the satellite connectivity through a downloadable eSIM. Sievert noted that “this gen one pricing will be good for at least a year.”
The $10 monthly fee marks a substantial shift from T-Mobile’s initial announcement during the Super Bowl, when the company unveiled plans for a tiered pricing model. Originally, the cellular Starlink service was to be free for T-Mobile’s top-tier plan subscribers through the end of this year, with other T-Mobile customers paying $15 monthly and rival carrier customers paying $20.
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T-Mobile had briefly offered an early adopter discount that locked in the $10 monthly rate, but has now extended this pricing to all potential users, suggesting a more aggressive strategy to build its user base.
The pricing adjustment comes as T-Mobile’s competitors aren’t sitting idle. AT&T and Verizon are developing their own satellite connectivity solutions with partners like AST SpaceMobile, creating a potentially competitive market for satellite-based cellular services.
The cellular Starlink service functions essentially as an orbiting cell tower network, currently providing text-based messaging capabilities to users in rural and remote locations. With over 550+ Direct to Cell satellites already in orbit, constellation is expected to evolve to support data downloads later this year, (FCC greenlights higher-power transmissions for Starlink Direct-to-Cell service), with voice calls on the roadmap as well.
T-Mobile reports that “hundreds of thousands of customers” have successfully sent messages through the cellular Starlink beta program, which has been gradually expanding to include users from competing networks. As July approaches, this $10 price point may help T-Mobile’s satellite service truly reach for the stars.
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