[hugs]

Check out the Garmin inReach Mini or Rock Seven's RockBLOCK 9603. They're already relatively small -- I could imagine those circuits getting smooshed into a phone case. However, I doubt the connection would be anywhere close to half-decent. Would be useful for emergency text-messaging after a disaster, though.

[gruez]

>Would be useful for emergency text-messaging after a disaster, though.

Disaster is probably the least useful use case for this. The satellite would be overloaded from all the people requesting help. A far more plausible use case is if you got lost hiking or something.

[Scoundreller]

Or multicast down, but probably couldn’t get more than a few kbps without killer expenses.

Outernet was an application of this concept:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othernet

But reality is that cellular coverage world wide gets better and better.