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SpaceX filing shows plans to bring Starlink to U.S. school buses
SpaceX plans to bring Starlink internet to students on school buses in the U.S., according to a new filing with the Federal Communications Commission.
The space exploration company is collaborating with several school districts for pilot projects in rural areas of the country to support students who have to travel on long bus routes. This gives students internet access while on those long rides.
SpaceX is focusing on school bus routes that are over an hour long each way and are also predominantly inaccessible to other mobile broadband services. In a letter addressed to FCC Secretary Marlene Dortch, SpaceX expressed its support for the agency’s efforts to fund the Schools and Libraries Universal Service Support Mechanism (E-Rate program) connecting millions of students who don’t have access to broadband internet.
“SpaceX is committed to ensuring access to high-speed, low-latency broadband service to benefit American students as quickly as possible, not only at home but on their way to and from school. In fact, SpaceX has prioritized connecting otherwise unserved schools and libraries in the most remote parts of the country, including on Tribal lands.”
“SpaceX therefore strongly agrees with Chairwoman Rosenworcel that providing Wi-Fi on school buses is critical to bridging the Homework Gap and that the provision of such services should be eligible for E-Rate support.”
“The Commission should quickly act to expand the scope of the E-Rate program by adopting the Chairwoman’s draft Declaratory Ruling to ensure equitable access to high-speed broadband services on school buses in addition to the already eligible schools and libraries.”
This lines up with what Elon Musk said over the summer about Starlink, education, and access to the internet. When asked about solutions to poverty, he said,”Literacy and access to internet, I think, are fundamentally helpful.”
According to the Borgen Project, 60 million people could be alleviated from poverty if they received two or more years of education or completed secondary school. DoSomething.org notes that over 30 million children are growing up in poverty and that there is only one book for every 300 children in low-income communities.
In addition, a higher percentage of young adults without a high school diploma live in poverty, and 40% of children living in poverty aren’t prepared for primary schooling.
“So I think those things are helpful. Generally, education, obviously, is good. These days you can learn almost anything online. MIT, for example, has all of their lectures online and a number of other universities do. If you wanted to, you could learn almost anything for a very low cost just using a simple phone or an old tablet–a router box basically,” Elon Musk said.
“You’ve got access to all the world’s information. I think that this fact is really underappreciated and it’s something we should be I think pretty excited and optimistic about or feel good about which is that information before the internet was very limited.”
“If you wanted to learn a skill or trade or learn something, you would have to go to a school and you’d have to get the specific books or you’d have to go to a library in that library wouldn’t necessarily have all the books that you’d want. Or maybe there isn’t a library or there might not be a library near where you live.”
“But with the internet, you’ve got instant access to basically all the world’s information. So information equality is really incredible compared to where it used to be.”
In the letter to the FCC Secretary, SpaceX also pointed out that low-income students are affected disproportionately.
“According to a Pew Research Center Study, roughly one-third (35%) of households with children ages 6 to 17 and an annual income below $30,000 a year do not have a high-speed internet connection at home.”
“And many students who need the most support live miles from school, with lengthy commutes but no connectivity. Subsidized funding such as the E-Rate program should address digital equity and enable increased educational opportunities for students across the United States by ensuring access to high-speed internet at home and on the way to school.”
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For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.
Would you buy a Tesla phone ? pic.twitter.com/aaTwvvIJit
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 6, 2023
Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.
It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.
Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.
The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.
Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.
The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.
SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.
There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.
The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.
Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.
The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.
On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.
Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD
It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”
New official Cybercab documentation from Tesla:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or… https://t.co/P6ut1mZyzr pic.twitter.com/yq6skl9s2J
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 27, 2026
This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.
It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something
There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.
Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.
Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.
Here are the full release notes for the suite:
- Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
- Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
- Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
- Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
- Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.
These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released
He added:
“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”
FSD v14 Lite is now rolling out to AI3 early-access customers. Based on the feedback, will rollout to more customers over the next few weeks.
This build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute config of AI3. It includes destination…
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 29, 2026
Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.
Tesla Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst
Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders
