This post draws on excellent articles by TelecomsTV and a newsletter from Ookla. Full credit to the original authors and the media for the concepts discussed below.
Headline points for busy readers
Starlink is best known in the Falklands as an alternative way of getting broadband at home. But SpaceX has much bigger ambitions.
The company is developing technology that allows ordinary mobile phones to connect directly to satellites when there is no conventional mobile signal. Elon Musk has also said Starlink could become a more complete global communications company, potentially offering mobile services as well as broadband.
A recent analysis by Ookla, the company behind Speedtest, shows that this is no longer just an interesting idea. More than $40 billion has been invested in direct-to-device satellite technology in the past year, and commercial services are already operating in several countries.
For the Falklands, the important question is not whether satellites will replace conventional mobile networks. They won’t, at least for the foreseeable future.
The more interesting question is whether satellite simply becomes another part of the mobile network. That’s worth thinking about as the Falklands decides what its telecommunications system should look like beyond 2027.
From satellite broadband to mobile phones
Most people in the Falklands know Starlink as a broadband service. Put a small dish outside your house, and it connects directly to satellites passing overhead. Direct-to-device, usually shortened to D2D, removes the dish from the equation.
Instead, a compatible ordinary mobile phone communicates directly with a satellite when it cannot find a terrestrial mobile signal. The technology is still developing. Today’s services mainly focus on text messages, emergencies, and relatively simple data applications. Nobody should imagine that a satellite connection to a phone will suddenly provide the same performance as a good 4G or 5G network.
But that misses the point. Ookla’s analysis puts it particularly well: the great strength of D2D is coverage, not speed. That could be particularly important in places such as the Falklands.
Filling the gaps
Building conventional mobile networks across large, sparsely populated areas is expensive. Towers need equipment, power and connections back into the main network, yet some may serve relatively few people. Satellites change that equation. They can potentially provide basic mobile coverage in places where building another terrestrial mast would make little economic sense.
And this is no longer confined to laboratory demonstrations. Ookla reports that, during testing in the United States during the first half of 2026, D2D successfully delivered roughly nine out of ten text messages from a moving vehicle. That is impressive for a technology still in its early stages.
It also has another advantage. If storms, earthquakes, or other events damage terrestrial infrastructure, satellites may keep operating because most of the network is hundreds of kilometres above Earth.
Eventually, we may not even notice
Perhaps the most interesting part of Ookla’s analysis is what could happen next. Today, connecting by satellite is something unusual. In future, it may become almost invisible to the user.
Your phone might normally use a terrestrial mobile network. When you walk into a building, it might use Wi-Fi. Drive into an area without mobile coverage and it could switch to a satellite. You might not even know which one you were using.
The longer-term ambition is for voice calls, messages and data to move between terrestrial, Wi-Fi and satellite networks as automatically as phones already move between different mobile cells today. That is potentially a much bigger change than simply adding satellite emergency messaging to a smartphone.
Where Starlink fits
This is where Elon Musk’s recent comments become interesting. Starlink already operates one of the world’s largest satellite broadband networks. SpaceX is now developing its direct-to-device capability, and Musk has spoken openly about creating a much more integrated global communications service.
That does not mean Starlink is about to become a conventional mobile operator everywhere. Major regulatory, spectrum, and commercial obstacles remain.
Indeed, Ookla points out that regulation may determine the speed of D2D deployment just as much as the technology itself. Different countries are already taking very different approaches.
Most satellite companies are therefore currently working with existing mobile operators rather than trying to replace them. But the direction of travel is becoming clearer.
And what about Amazon?
Amazon is heading in a similar technological direction, although its approach is currently less aggressive than Starlink’s.
Its satellite business, Amazon Leo, is primarily being developed as a broadband network. However, Amazon is also positioning itself to participate in direct-to-device communications as the technology and regulatory framework develop.
This matters because Starlink is unlikely to be the only major satellite company interested in this market. Competition between satellite operators, mobile companies and new partnerships between the two could become an important feature of telecommunications over the next decade.
What does this mean for the Falklands?
None of this means that the Falklands should abandon conventional mobile infrastructure. Stanley and other areas with concentrated populations will continue to benefit from terrestrial mobile networks because they can provide much greater capacity and speed.
But Camp presents a very different challenge. For decades, the Falklands have had to find ways to extend telecommunications services across a huge geographical area with relatively few people. Satellite technology has always played a major part in solving that problem.
D2D could eventually take that one step further by extending ordinary mobile coverage without requiring a conventional mobile mast everywhere it is needed. And that brings us back to the decisions now being made about telecommunications beyond 2027.
Technology is changing remarkably quickly. Starlink has already shown how quickly an established telecommunications market can be disrupted by something barely considered when the existing Falklands telecommunications licence was designed.
D2D could bring another change. The sensible question therefore isn’t whether the Falklands should choose satellite or terrestrial mobile. Increasingly, the answer may be both.
The more important question is whether whatever telecommunications framework replaces the present arrangements after 2027 will be flexible enough to take advantage of technologies and competitors that are only now emerging.
The Falklands should design the next telecommunications framework for where communications are going—not simply where they are today.
Chris Gare, OpenFalklands, August 2026, copyright OpenFalklands
