Even 120 miles from town in a cellular dead zone, I was able to stay in contact with my family using the $10 a month T-Satellite service. And I didn't need to be on a T-Mobile plan or buy a new phone to do it.

Starlink is owned and operated by SpaceX, which is also run by Musk. Elon Musk ’s satellite internet service Starlink said it had a “network outage” on Thursday. The company said it was working on a solution. There were more than 60,000 reports of an outage on Downdetector, a site that logs issues.

T-Mobile’s satellite service is now available to people across the US — and not just T-Mobile customers. On Wednesday, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert announced that the Starlink-powered service is officially out of beta, though it only supports text messaging and location-sharing for now.