With the storm damaging the communication infrastructure in the Southeastern U.S., the FCC approved the satellite service temporarily to give those who were in the path of the storm a way to communicate via their cellular phones by using satellites to send text messages. The service was originally scheduled to begin operating by the end of this year.
“We have now enabled basic texting (SMS) for those on T-Mobile phones in hurricane-affected areas. Text messages have already been sent and received. You can text loved ones, text 911 and continue to receive emergency alerts.”-SpaceX
If you live in an area affected by Hurricane Helene or are about to get hit by Hurricane Milton, and you’re a T-Mobile subscriber, you will notice on your phone’s status bar that you have one to two bars of service. In the area where you normally see the “T-Mobile” name indicating that you are connected to the carrier’s network, you will see “T-Mobile SpaceX” instead.
SpaceX says that it is trying to get these text messages delivered on a “best-efforts” basis. If a text does not go through at first, you should manually retry sending them. SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, also points out that while the service does work best outdoors, it will work occasionally inside near a window. All of the texts are free and during these emergencies, communicating in this manner might be the only way to find out how your loved ones are doing.
“While SpaceX’s direct-to-cell constellation has not been fully deployed, we felt that getting even this early test version into the hands of people on the ground could provide vital support as teams work to get infrastructure and services back online and help first responders with rescue efforts.”-T-Mobile
In Florida, this writer was once without power for over one week in the middle of October 2005 after Hurricane Wilma blew through the area. While this was before the modern touchscreen smartphone era that started in 2007 with the release of the OG iPhone, many of us owned cell phones that were useless with the wireless infrastructure down. Having a satellite service for texts would have eliminated the feeling that we were cut off from the rest of the world.