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by simonh 1746 days ago
The antennas on those things are monstrous compared to anything on a mainstream smartphone. The image in the link is of it collapsed, this is what it looks like extended. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Iridium-Satellite-Prepaid-Airtime-I...

That’s dictated by basic physics and it’s not going in an iPhone effectively ever. Iridium satellites are in geo orbit though. You might be able to make a useful connection to something in LEO with a more compact antenna, but the satellites would have to be designed to support that. Current star link satellites have antennas designed to work with current star link base station antennas, not phone scale antennas. That could change though.