[vel0city]

4G and 5G need devices to be synchronized to each other by like 1.5 microseconds or they'll start getting a lot of errors. They do a lot of time division duplexing, so if things are not well synchronized people start talking all over each other.

Now, that's just synchronized with each other, so if the Moon is off by whatever difference in time that's not a problem. It is not like that 4/5G cell is also participating in the same RF environment as cells on Earth.

[lxgr]

Yeah, that’s what I mean: They don’t need an absolute time reference; they can just respond with whatever delay/frequency offset compensates for the one observed as they communicate.

S-CDMA did have close timing requirements between cells, as far as I know, but the GSM/3GPP family of standards never did.

[g_p]

TDD networks (where the same frequency is used for downlink and uplink, but with timeslots for each) do need tight timing between cells though, but it doesn't have to be absolute - just in sync with each other so one cell doesn't blast out a full power downlink while adjacent and nearby cells are quietly trying to listen for the (much quieter) uplink transmissions of their user devices.