911 service will soon work in the most remote wilderness or even the middle of the ocean or potentially even at the poles. Likely even on a phone with no service plan at all. This will save countless lives.
and now the phone will be able to physically communicate with satellites literally anywhere on the surface of the Earth. A huge improvement!
And while free emergency service has been the convention for terrestrial cell towers, SpaceX was under no obligation to extend the practice to satellite service. Existing satphone providers certainly did not.
GPS already works globally thanks to a very similar gift by the US government. Phones automatically send it to 911 when you call. So it's already paired. Starlink will additionally have some idea of a phone's location just due to how the phased arrays work, but not nearly as precise as GPS.
It's quite a stretch to call it a gift from the US government. The original GPS was opened up with horrible accuracy. Every superpower now operates their own positioning constellations free of charge. Thanks US, EU, Russia, India and China
>"The original GPS opened up with horrible accuracy"
When GPS launched more than thirty years ago, the accuracy for civilians was within 330 feet, made universally accessible at no additional cost to everyone in the world at a cost of 12 billion dollars. That's a pretty darn good gift if I've ever seen one. Also India does not have a global satellite navigation system, only a regional one.
Not only that, the US government stopped limiting accuracy in 2000. Long before any alternative was available publicly or globally. It's questionable whether other systems would have been made free if GPS hadn't set the example. It was absolutely a gift to the world and it's incredible the backflips people will turn to try to minimize it.
This is already done. "When the cellular phone detects that the user is placing an emergency call, it begins to transmit its location to a secure server, from which the PSAP can retrieve it. Cellphone manufacturers may program the phone to enable GPS function automatically (in case it has been turned off) when the user places an emergency call." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_911
Yeah, there are countless people dying in the middle of the ocean or at the poles...
There is also this little gem in his message "This applies worldwide, subject to approval by country governments.". In Elon's words, it means it's never happening.
There are lots of places in the US that don't have cellular service. There are lots of people who go hiking without PLB or satellite messenger cause they are expensive. They take their phones.
A month ago, a couple was found dead in life raft off Nova Scotia after abandoning their sailboat. No one knows what happened because they didn't activate their EPIRB. If it was quick evacuation, they could have ended up in life raft with just phones.
