[ianburrell]

Starlink Direct-to-Cell isn't normal LTE service. It has low bandwidth, which limits it to messages, voice, and slow data. It is basically 2G or a satellite phone. It would not be enough for streaming music.

Starlink is only allowing text messaging for now. They are going to offer data but haven't announced how much.

[93po]

to be clear - it does have like up to 10megabit per satellite, you could totally stream low quality netflix off this service. the tricky part is having to share it with thousands of people (or around 50km area, to be specific), meaning you're metered to super slow 2g-like service.

this is also a noteworthy nuance because you can video call with emergency services using this satellite connection. that's a pretty rare and exceptional circumstance so they clearly allow you to saturate a lot of the bandwidth for that purpose

still super cool technology. 10mbit is like 9000 texts per second, so even in the most dense areas like Manhattan with 1.3 million people in 50 square km, if everyone texts 40 times a day, starlink still has 10x more bandwidth than that. granted people text more during the day, but it'd still be fine for text-only without media.

[ultrarunner]

It does, however, seem like the perfect medium for collecting telemetry on vehicles, so Tesla will now have a great means of tracking their vehicles locations at all times.

[gruez]

It already has good tracking because most people aren't living in the middle of nowhere with no cell coverage. They're not worried about you going off the grid the 1 or 2 times a year you go camping in yellowstone or whatever. If you're punching in your destination using the built-in navigation (there's no carplay/android auto), they'll know where you're going even without cell coverage.