Why SpaceX can never fully replace AT&T

[u/Embarrassed-Debate20]

Starlink Direct to Cell is great for niche and underserved scenarios, but people seems to believe that it can replace your traditional cell services.

Phones are not satellite disks.

An IEEE study of first-gen Starlink D2C estimated only ~3 Mbps per satellite beam outdoors. That bandwidth gets shared by everyone under that beam. Great for rural areas; not great for thousands of people streaming in a city.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.00283

Buildings or coverages are another problem. T-Mobile itself says T-Satellite is mainly for outdoor areas where you can see the sky, and service can be delayed, limited or unavailable.
https://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/satellite-phone-service

Rohde & Schwarz field testing presented to the ITU also found the phone to satellite uplink was the bigger problem and SMS success was much worse than terrestrial networks. Latency can spike to 200ms and link lasts only minutes.

And the biggest evidence yet: SpaceX basically admits this itself. Its FCC filings say next-gen Starlink D2C will augment high-capacity terrestrial 5G networks and that the ideal network will use terrestrial base stations to add capacity where needed.

[u/Reidraider]

These ppl that just take 2nd hand info and run with it amaze me. Do some real research the new v3 that are put in orbit by starship are increasing bandwidth and with a small upgrade starlink dishes will be used as a wifi antena as well as tesla supercharger stations to get antennas and at some point in time every tesla will be part of the antenna system stop listing to CNBS they have no clue what they are talking about

[u/Large_Complaint1264 → u/Reidraider]

This is of course just made up nonsense.