AT&T Users Show Interest in T-Mobile’s Starlink Satellite Service

T-Mobile first announced its satellite plans with partner SpaceX in August 2022, just before Apple unveiled its own satellite partnership with Globalstar. Fast forward to 2025, and T-Mobile officially launched its satellite texting service with SpaceX on July 23. Now, Ookla Speedtest data provides a look at the early usage of T-Mobile’s T-Satellite service across T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizo,n and FirstNet users. Key takeaways include: 

• AT&T customers accounted for around a third of all T-Satellite connections during this 10-month period. T-Mobile customers accounted for roughly 60% of the connections.
• Los Angeles County, California, was the country’s most popular location for T-Satellite activity. This massive county contains both the city of Los Angeles and Angeles National Forest, an area known for its rugged mountains, steep canyons, and extensive trail systems. It’s also where T-Mobile deployed free T-Satellite text messaging services in the early days of 2025, amid multiple wildfires.
• The median download and upload speeds of Starlink’s fixed internet service showed no signs of degradation amid the testing and launch of T-Mobile’s T-Satellite service this year. That’s likely due to the fact that Starlink’s smartphone-capable satellites are different from those supporting its fixed internet service.