The Starlink Direct to Cell website further adds that the new, satellite-based cell towers function as generic LTE towers and are compatible with existing LTE-capable phones “wherever you can see the sky.” The copy on the site explains that Direct to Cell functions “similar[ly] to a standard roaming partner,” the same way that T-Mobile falls back to an alternate partner carried when you fall outside of T-Mobile’s service area while still within the partner carrier’s footprint.
In addition to T-Mobile in the U.S., Starlink Direct to Cell partners so far include Optus in Australia, Rogers in Canada, One NZ in New Zealand, KDDI in Japan, Salt in Switzerland, and Entel in Chile. The press release, though, notes that, so far, only KDDI, Optus, One NZ, and Rogers are live and functional.
“One of the great advantages of this proposal is that it will work using the same 4G VoLTE phones that exist in the market today. It does not require any special equipment or special software,” Entel network manager Luis Uribe told BNamericas last week, shortly after the Chilean deal was announced. “This is an important advantage over traditional satellite solutions.” That’s a notable difference from Apple’s Emergency SOS feature for satellite access, which requires an iPhone 14 or later. As with the initial implementation of Starlink Direct to Cell, iPhone Emergency SOS is limited to short, text-based messages to make the most of limited bandwidth.