Australia’s second-largest telco will expand its mobile coverage to 100 percent of the country after signing a deal with Elon Musk’s SpaceX venture, Starlink.
The deal, announced on Wednesday, will see Optus use low-Earth orbit satellites to deliver voice calls, data and SMS messages in an Australian first when services launch in the next two years.
Industry analysts say it could help connect “under-serviced” phone users in remote and regional areas who were still without coverage, though the partnership was unlikely to see Optus seriously challenge Telstra for network speed or reliability.
The latest Starlink deal comes nine days after the company announced plans to team with Telstra to deliver satellite broadband services in regional areas, in a move widely seen as a challenge to the NBN’s rival Sky Muster service….