AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon might get a better alternative to Musk's Starlink

Currently, T-Mobile’s Starlink is the only space-based mobile network in the United States that automatically connects to a phone even where there’s no cellular network coverage. The US has about 500,000 square miles where there’s no cellular signal at all, so the only possible way to communicate via a phone is to use Starlink’s satellite service.

However, a French startup is currently building a constellation of Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) telecom satellites, and the first tech demonstration flight is scheduled to launch in June.

Constellation Technologies and Operations (CTO) is a Paris-based startup that has a very different business model than Musk’s Starlink. Instead of directly competing with carriers to offer their own services to end users like Starlink does, CTO will provide terrestrial network operators like AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and others with shared access to its space-based telecom services.

But what is CTO getting in return for allowing all these carriers to access its space-based telecom services it operates? It’s pretty simple: access to the carriers’ customer bases, meaning billions of people.



The approach is not even more intelligent, but the constellation that CTO is building seems to be superior to Musk’s Starlink, at least on paper. First off, the company has already integrated its Early Test payload into D-Orbit’s ION satellite platform, marking the first-ever use of 5G mmWave spectrum for high-speed, low-latency satellite internet transmission.

Another important benefit of having a CTO satellite connection rather than one managed by Starlink is that the former’s satellites are orbiting closer to the Earth, which means faster internet speeds and lower latency.