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SpaceX achieves 17 Mbit/s download speed from satellite to Android phone – Tablets & Phones – News

Some background: This works by Starlink getting permission from certain carriers, like T-Mobile in the US, to use their spectrum to provide a signal in a certain area.

This works with your existing phone over 4G/LTE, probably around the 1900MHz band (possibly 1800MHz in Europe). Then you have a direct connection with the satellite.

To keep the service accessible to a large number of concurrent users, only text will be provided. Maybe later too a voice. It probably works over roaming, meaning you're roaming on “Starlink 4G” if you're a T-Mobile USA customer. With this provider, you can now also roam through other providers.

It will operate similarly in New Zealand and Switzerland. It makes sense there because there are vast wilderness areas with zero coverage on the main roads. In New Zealand and Australia you will actually find more people with satellite phones than here. But now you can still access the network with your own phone without needing a satellite phone.

This will not happen in the Netherlands only for this reason. Having a large number of users in one geographical location will quickly overload the satellite, just as if you were on an overloaded network at a festival. So people will build slowly before the data is actually released to users.

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