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They're nice, but shouldn't be needed. Ubiquitilink (mentioned as Lynk in the article) has proven 500km two-way connections without them. A large constellation at that height with large antennas and spectrum rights should be able to offer higher bandwidth service than Globalstar's current network offers to iPhones.

Globalstar's capabilities aren't frozen either. The Apple deal uses most of their capacity, but they'll be launching additional satellites. While they're not in the current deal, Globalstar could launch a lower LEO service in the future. Cell phones with bigger antennas, like the case antennas in the new iPhones, would have better sat service communicating at Starlink's range.

We're also in relatively early days of large antenna deployment. AST's record-setting antennas are going to look quaint as launch costs and more complicated deployments continue to advance and benefit every satellite network.