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Starlink's New Ability to Deliver Broadband Directly to Your Phone—Anywhere

By Rain Noe - November 10, 2025

in Tech | Social Impact

Starlink currently has around 8,000 satellites in orbit. These deliver broadband to underserved areas—if users set up a Starlink dish and router at their location.

However, the 600 most-recently launched of those satellites have special equipment that can beam broadband directly to standard LTE-equipped smartphones. They're basically Wi-Fi towers in space.

Starlink began providing this Direct to Cell (D2C) service last year, enabling text messaging in remote areas across five continents. "The service works with existing LTE phones wherever you can see the sky – no changes to hardware, firmware, or special apps are required," the company says.

Now the company has announced plans to launch a further 15,000 D2C-enabled satellites, meaning that by next year, users will be able to have true full-service broadband delivered straight to their phones, no dish required.

This will be a gamechanger. Never mind being able to stream movies in the middle of a lake, participate in video calls from a mountaintop or play games in the desert; the service is literally saving lives. D2C can "connect millions of people around the world in places that have never had cellular connectivity before, and even during emergencies when terrestrial systems are impacted," the company explains.

"Following hurricanes, severe flooding and wildfires in the United States, Starlink Direct to Cell powered life-saving connectivity. In those events alone, more than 1.5 million people were able to communicate with Direct to Cell service when terrestrial networks were down, millions of SMS messages were sent and received, and hundreds of Wireless Emergency Alerts that otherwise would not have been received were successfully delivered.

"Additionally, people outside of terrestrial cellular network coverage have been able to receive assistance from emergency services when they previously would not. In New Zealand, a woman who came upon a car crash that happened in a cellular dead zone was able to text her partner the location of the accident through a Starlink Direct to Cell connection, and first responders were on the scene within minutes of the text being sent."

"More than 50 percent of the world's land mass remains uncovered by terrestrial services," the company says. Their goal is to "ultimately eliminate mobile dead zones around the world."

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Alan Nomoto

5 months ago

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Our next Superfund site, begging for better technology & a solution that a snake oil salesman has to offer.

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Toby B

5 months ago

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"They're basically Wi-Fi towers in space." Was that supposed to be "cell towers in space"? Wifi generally isn't on towers (in space or terrestrially),

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Derek Peterson

5 months ago

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Looking through the comments, it's astonishing how many people just repeat the same programmed lines — "Elon is bad."
Where's the independent thought?
Do you ever stop to actually think for yourself?

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Ryan Cee

5 months ago

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Unless you're in Ukraine.

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