An American intelligence assessment found that the balloon used a commercially available U.S. network to communicate, primarily for navigation, U.S. officials say.
I was having a hard time imagining which company this could be. Not that I'm a fan of Verizon or Comcast, but I think they know what side their bread is buttered on. Which one wouldn't?
Don't think they were colluding with the provider. They probably just put a burner sim card into a 4g module and sent data over a VPN to China whenever it had signal.
Why would they need data then? With GPS can get a 1metre accurate chip for like 20 bucks and it's way smaller. And no need for any carrier or subscription.
It’s a satellite provider. Cell networks don’t work at that altitude. Starlink was my first guess too but, after some more thought, it could be Hughesnet. They probably have wider coverage.