Neither Musk nor Bezos will (yet) free you from your mobile operator

This Friday marks 64 years since NASA put the Telstar 1, the first commercial telecommunications satellite, into orbit. Currently, 10,413 Starlink satellites, Elon Musk's company, fly over our heads. In contrast, the European Union, which has been talking about strategic autonomy in telecommunications for years, has not yet launched any from its flagship project. The difference explains where we are in 2026 in satellite connectivity.

Starlink assured at the last MWC in Barcelona in February that it had surpassed 10 million subscribers to its satellite internet service; its executives were confident of reaching 25 million before the end of the year. These are optimistic forecasts, but the trend is clear: it is estimated that Starlink is already the sixth operator with the most unique users in Spain, with more than half a million active connections.

Fiber and satellite don't play in the same league

This success must be put into context: in Spain, fiber optics reach 95.92% of the population, according to the most recent official data. It is the widest coverage in Europe, far ahead of Germany or the United Kingdom. The satellite does not compete with fiber where it exists, but only in the small percentage of the territory where no terrestrial operator has ever reached, nor ever will.

At its core is a physical issue. Geostationary satellites orbit at about 36,000 kilometers and always maintain the same position relative to Earth, but this distance introduces a delay of hundreds of milliseconds into the signal. Low-orbit satellites (like Starlink or Amazon Leo) fly at less than 2,000 kilometers and reduce latency to levels comparable to fiber, although thousands are needed to cover the entire planet. Some operators already combine the two orbits, and also the medium orbit, in hybrid constellations.

In the limited territory where satellite does compete with fiber, the numbers can be directly compared. Starlink offers three plans in Spain, from 35 to 65 euros per month, with speeds between 100 and 400 Mbps download and a latency of between 20 and 40 milliseconds. With fiber, where it is available, for less than 25 euros you get higher connection speeds than the highest of the satellite and latencies below 10 milliseconds.

Amazon starts from a more delayed position. Its Kuiper constellation, now renamed Amazon Leo, had about 365 production satellites in orbit last month, far from the more than 3,200 planned for the first phase. Nevertheless, commercial service is expected to start this summer, with domestic and professional terminals (ships, planes).

The Spanish government subsidizes a third, older and less flashy option. Since 2023, several operators led by Movistar have been marketing, via Hispasat's geostationary satellites, a rural broadband service under the commercial name Conéctate35, financed with 76.3 million euros from European funds. The service costs 35 euros per month, with speeds of up to 200 Mbps but with a latency of between 600 and 700 milliseconds, penalized by the geostationary orbit. In March, it had only about 11,500 customers.

From emergency SOS to mobile phones without an operator

The second major transformation in the sector is direct mobile connectivity, known as D2D. It began in 2022, when Apple integrated into the iPhone 14, in alliance with Globalstar, a system to request satellite assistance designed only for emergencies without coverage. Since then, it has evolved towards messaging and now towards applications that consume little data, such as WhatsApp and Google Maps.

The company that has most driven D2D technology is AST SpaceMobile. Its BlueBird satellites (the latest is the largest commercial antenna ever deployed in low orbit) have managed to transmit peaks of almost 99 Mbps directly to standard phones, without any modification. AST has agreements with nearly 60 operators, totaling over 3 billion subscribers worldwide: Vodafone, AT&T, Verizon, and Telefónica, among others.

Starlink has followed a parallel path with Direct to Cell, which it has been marketing for a year in the United States with T-Mobile, and which allows sending SMS and using a handful of specific applications. In Spain, MasOrange and SpaceX announced in February a technical pilot in the province of Valladolid, the first of its kind in the entire European Union. For now, however, it only covers messaging and light data, still without voice or general data.

The spectrum battle

Without its own spectrum, a satellite cannot talk directly to a mobile phone, which is why Starlink Direct to Cell relies on the licensed spectrum of operators like T-Mobile and MasOrange. This is starting to change: in May, the US approved SpaceX's purchase of 65 MHz from EchoStar for $17 billion, the first exclusive and national spectrum that Musk's firm has acquired for its direct-to-mobile service, without any terrestrial operator as an intermediary.

Amazon has made a similar move: in April, it bought Globalstar, the company that has been offering iPhone satellite services since 2022, and will use its spectrum for its own D2D from 2028.

None of these services work with just any phone: they require chips and antennas that are currently only incorporated in the most expensive models. According to Counterpoint Research, they will account for 46% of global sales by 2030, led by Apple, Samsung, Huawei, and Google, but adoption in the mid-range segment still awaits new versions of the 3GPP standard.

Whether they have their own spectrum or not, the capacity offered by satellites today remains much lower than that of a terrestrial antenna. The sector presents it only as a complement for dead zones, not as a general alternative.

Around these technologies, a network of alliances between operators and space companies has been woven, already totaling 275 agreements in 101 countries, according to data from the GSA association. Starlink participates in 96; AST SpaceMobile, in 44. In addition to those already mentioned, notable agreements include Telefónica's with Sateliot for defense and security services, and Vodafone's with AST SpaceMobile to create a joint European subsidiary.

Coverage for sensors

Another major chapter is the Internet of Things (IoT) via satellite, designed to connect sensors and devices where no network reaches. Sateliot, the Barcelona-based company, operates six satellites under the 5G standard and sells connectivity at one dollar per month per device, with clients in 60 countries; in Catalonia, the i2CAT technology center has tested its application in El Pallars, with collars for grazing livestock where no terrestrial network reaches due to the complexity of the terrain, and in Empordà, with soil sensors for agricultural irrigation. Sateliot also collaborates with the company Sensefinity to track maritime containers, with the aim of reducing cargo losses on routes where ships spend entire weeks without coverage.

The European Union aims to respond to all of this with IRIS², its sovereign constellation of some 290 satellites, awarded to the SpaceRISE consortium (SES, Eutelsat, and Hispasat). The budget amounts to 10.6 billion euros, and the first services, specifically aimed at EU governments, will not arrive until 2030.