In moments when you’re out of cellular range, which can happen a lot during road trips or if you’re someone who goes camping or hiking, not being able to contact people can sometimes make things more dangerous than they need to be. Satellite messaging literally solves that.
T-Mobile and Starlink’s partnership has gotten a lot of press, but it is still in its beta phases. Apparently, that’s why, coming out of nowhere, Verizon has launched satellite texting on its network and declared itself the first to give its customers that privilege. There are a few catches to this though.
Verizon Now Allows Satellite Texting Even When You’re Far Out of Range
There hasn’t been much talk from Verizon about joining the whole space race that T-Mobile started in the network carrier market. T-Mobile joined forces with Starlink while we’ve heard a lot about AT&T working with AST Spacemobile. However, maybe I simply wasn’t listening out well enough, but I heard very little about Verizon trying to join the fight. That’s why today’s announcement is a bit of a surprise.
Verizon has just announced its satellite messaging service has gone live in the US. It’s non-emergency, which means if you find yourself out of cellular range, you can take advantage of it for things as mundane as sending a shopping list to your partner. The coll thing is that it doesn’t matter what network the other person is using. As long as you have Verizon, you’ll be able to take advantage of this, and I find that to be cool.
Verizon says its customers are the first in the US to be able to send messages to anyone, regardless of their network or device. T-Mobile definitely won’t be happy about that. The carrier is already getting the service up and running, and if you don’t see it quite yet, don’t get too worried. It should be available across the US and to all eligible subscribers within the next two weeks.
Only Select Android Devices Are Able to Use This Service at the Moment
Now, perhaps it isn’t too surprising that there’s a catch to this. You’ll only be able to take advantage of this service if you’re using a device in either the Google Pixel 9 lineup or the Samsung Galaxy S25 family. Any other device won’t do the trick.
I find that rather interesting, as both of those phone lineups support satellite connectivity. T-Mobile’s take on the feature uses direct-to-device tech that makes it possible for literally any phone to take advantage of satellites. However, thinking about it, Verizon’s take is likely the kind that is limited by the hardware of the smartphone. That would explain why they were able to deploy it so much faster. I could be wrong though.
Time will tell. By the time Verizon completes its infrastructure upgrades within the next two weeks, we will know how far-reaching this service will be. While this feature seems to have no cost attached, at least initially, there’s no mention of how much it could potentially cost. After all, T-Mobile plans to charge for its option.
