Wireless network carrier T-Mobile announced on April 28 that it had partnered with Starlink to launch its SuperBroadband business internet service.
The service pairs T-Mobile’s 5G network with Starlink’s low earth orbit satellite fleet to provide redundant internet service and coverage to businesses across the United States, T-Mobile said in a press release. The dual internet pathways work in unison to keep commercial customers online through “virtually all outages and disruptions.”
“We’ve built a solution that’s resilient by design, available everywhere it counts, and simple to deploy, use, and scale,” André Almeida, president of growth and emerging Businesses for T-Mobile, said.
Internet outages can be costly for businesses. One study suggests IT median downtime per minute for commercial users can cost $33,333, or a combined median of $76 million per year. Network failure and third-party service provider or cloud services failure are cited as two primary reasons for internet outages.
T-Mobile said its new SuperBroadband service provides enhanced redundancy by using Starlink’s network of thousands of low-earth orbit satellites, owned and operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to keep businesses online. The service is backed by a 99.99 percent uptime guarantee, the company said.
“Integrating Starlink with T-Mobile 5G brings reliable, high-performance broadband to businesses with mission-critical operations where downtime costs thousands per hour,” Jason Fritch, vice president of Starlink enterprise sales for SpaceX, said in a statement.
The press release promises quick and easy startup adding that the service extends connectivity to “millions of new locations.”
SuperBroadband plans start at $250 per month with a three-year minimum commitment, T-Mobile announced on its website. The service includes unlimited enterprise 5G data usage and unlimited backup of Starlink data. T-Mobile manages the full cycle of service, including design, installation, configuration, and support. T-Mobile also provides SuperBroadband customers with 5G connectivity hardware from Cisco or Ericsson, as well as a standard Starlink connectivity kit.
SuperBroadband customers receive redundancy from Starlink internet in the event of a 5G service outage, and IT load is split between the two networks during periods of high traffic to optimize performance and speed, T-Mobile said.
“What we’ve built with T-Mobile is a system designed for continuous operations, where networks work together seamlessly to maintain uptime and performance,” Matt Cook, Ericsson Enterprise Wireless Solutions’ chief sales officer, said.
