By Andrew Berg
AT&T Mobility will reportedly begin reselling satellite enabled phones and service from TerreStar in the near future. TerreStar plans to launch a satellite on July 1. AT&T and TerreStar have been working together since August of 2008 when the two companies signed a nationwide reciprocal roaming agreement.
The TerreStar handsets have a BlackBerry form factor and run on Windows Mobile Professional 6, and feature dual-band WCDMA, WCDMA HSDPA 2.2 and Quad-band GSM/EGPRS (850, 900, 1800 and 1900) which allow roaming in and out of terrestrial and satellite networks.
The service would allow AT&T to offer roaming services in remote rural locations. Such service could also be a valuable asset to public safety workers and first responders in the event of a natural or manmade incident that might disrupt terrestrial networks.
Endgadget reports rumors the phone service will run around $1 per minute with unsubsidized TerreStar handsets priced around $700.