“This will allow smartphones to communicate anywhere on the planet,” Elon Musk showed the first Starlink satellites with direct connection to smartphones (2 photos)

Launch expected early this year

SpaceX has officially announced that it is going to launch the first six Starlink satellites with the ability to connect directly to smartphones, which will further advance global communications and help eliminate dead zones (where there is no connection).





Elon Musk himself retweeted the post and added: “This will allow smartphones to communicate anywhere on the planet. Each beam can only support about 7 Mbits. So it’s a great solution for places without cellular coverage, but it won’t compete with existing terrestrial cellular networks.”

The launch was originally planned for mid-December 2023, but SpaceX encountered unresolved issues before the launch and was forced to delay the mission.

According to SpaceX's official website, the direct-to-connect service can be used with existing smartphones to achieve "text, voice and data access" without changing hardware, firmware or special applications.



In other words, users do not need to specifically purchase a new satellite-enabled smartphone to connect directly to satellites, which is different from current technologies from Huawei and other companies.

Analysts predict the technology will enable text messaging starting in 2024, and will support voice calls and web browsing from 2025.