The test X post simply said: “This post was sent through a SpaceX Direct to Cell satellite.”
SpaceX’s Director of Satellite Engineering provided more information about the X post. He revealed that the post was made under the cover of trees in a small valley in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Starlink’s Direct to Cell satellites aim to eliminate deadlines, enabling people to contact anyone anywhere.
Direct to Cell will be indispensable during a crisis, specifically when calls need to get through to emergency personnel. The SpaceX team just completed the first post on X from a phone to one of our Direct to Cell satellites!— Ben Longmier (@longmier)
This was the tree cover in a small valley in the Santa Cruz Mountains earlier in the day when we were exchanging some DMs on X. “Note, this only supports ~7Mb per beam and the beams are very big, so while this is a great solution for locations with no cellular connectivity, it is not meaningfully competitive with existing terrestrial cellular networks,” explained Elon Musk on X.
Last week, SpaceX filed a letter with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).