One of the most positive points of Starlink is the independence of satellite dish connections on Earth. This allows its users to have a signal anywhere in the world, no matter how remote it may be. The people at SpaceX demonstrated the benefits of this system, with the first video call between an iPhone, connected to a satellite from Elon Musk's company.
According to what they show in a post from their X account, the iPhone is not connected to any telephone company data service, local Internet or terrestrial Wi-Fi network. The connection is pure with the Starlink satellite under a modality called emergency calls.
In case you are in a remote location and need to contact another person in an emergency, the service allows you to establish the connection.
The images of the iPhone user who made the connection to the satellite look a little blurry or pixelated, but the voice sounds clear and the call never stutters, which is the basics for an emergency call.
Xataka He notes that on the other side of the call there was a Google Pixel that was connected to a terrestrial network, as if to simulate the real emergency call from a person who is in a remote area and someone who is in the city.
Direct connection with Starlink satellites
SpaceX and Starlink have launched special satellites that provide this service called Direct to Cell. “It is not as fast as the Starlink residential service, since it registers speeds of 17 Mbps, but it serves to meet the main objective, which is emergencies,” reported in Xataka.
“In the United States, Starlink reached a deal with T-Mobile to carry out tests prior to the deployment of the service. “SpaceX engineers are doing these tests in the PCS G frequency block, which is equivalent to band 25 of the LTE spectrum, so virtually any modern smartphone can connect directly to a Starlink Direct to Cell satellite, even indoors,” they added. from the mentioned site.
This service is expected to be available at the end of this year.