T-Mobile tests emergency alert on Starlink satellite

T-Mobile has successfully conducted a wireless emergency alert test via a Starlink satellite. The un-carrier said this is the first time a US wireless emergency alert (WEA) has been sent by satellite.

“This is one of those days, as the CEO of a wireless company, that makes me pause for a moment and reflect on how technology advancements and the work we’re doing is truly impacting life and death situations,” said Mike Sievert, CEO of T-Mobile, in a statement. 

T-Mobile said the WEA test means emergency alerts can now be sent to 500,000 square miles of rural, mountainous and/or uninhabitable land nationwide.

The test alert – a hypothetical evacuation notice – was sent out at 5:13 PM PT on Thursday, September 5. After traveling 217 miles into space, the alert was received by one of Starlink’s 175 direct-to-smartphone satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO). The alert was then broadcast back to a geographic area affected by the hypothetical alert and received on a T-Mobile smartphone. The whole process took only seconds, said T-Mobile.

The service provider said satellite-based WEAs will be critical in assisting emergency responders in natural disasters like the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California, which had a death toll of 86 people. The fire started in the rural Sierra Nevada mountains and burned over 150,000 acres, leading to the evacuation of 52,000 people and destruction of 19,000 structures plus the majority of the city of Paradise.

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