UBIQUITOUS COVERAGE Starlink satellites with Direct to Cell capabilities enable ubiquitous access to texting, calling, and browsing wherever you may be on land, lakes, or coastal waters. Direct to Cell will also connect IoT devices with common LTE standards. STAY CONNECTED Direct to Cell works with existing LTE phones wherever you can see the sky. No […]
From their timeline it seems it’ll be a year or two before it becomes available, but that’s pretty cool nonetheless. I wonder how strong (and sensitive) of an antenna the satellites need to communicate with phones designed for much shorter range communication, and if it’ll work with cloud cover.
Actually, because its line of sight the transmitters not need be super powerful. I am an amateur radio operator and the sats i can talk to in LEO use like 100mW (0.1W) transmitters and we can pick them up. The biggest proble.m really is that the satellite needs a large antenna to pick up the phone. The higher the frequency they use the smaller the antennas on the sats can be.
From their timeline it seems it’ll be a year or two before it becomes available, but that’s pretty cool nonetheless. I wonder how strong (and sensitive) of an antenna the satellites need to communicate with phones designed for much shorter range communication, and if it’ll work with cloud cover.
Actually, because its line of sight the transmitters not need be super powerful. I am an amateur radio operator and the sats i can talk to in LEO use like 100mW (0.1W) transmitters and we can pick them up. The biggest proble.m really is that the satellite needs a large antenna to pick up the phone. The higher the frequency they use the smaller the antennas on the sats can be.