zlacker

Starlink is rolling out "direct to cell" connections, where the satellites connect directly to GSM cell phones. Is any ground station involved in a cell to cell call?

>>Animat+(OP)
You could imagine a situation where they can do that.

But practically what happens is the phone connects to a sat, the sat connects to a local ground station, then across conventional fiber to another ground station, up to a sat and then down to the other phones.

The are likely doing that because regulation and so on. But the do what you suggest.

>>panick+Pu
That wastes half the bandwidth of the system. Will Musk put up with that?