When Olivia Lott left her job in London to move to a village in rural Devon, she expected a quieter pace of life – but not the almost complete absence of mobile reception.
With patchy phone signals forcing her to climb hillsides just to make a call, Lotte eventually resorted to installing a landline, a rarity among her fellow millennials. “Sometimes I like peace, but if my Wi-Fi goes down, I’m stuck,” she says. “I have to go into town to find a café to work at.”
This digital isolation may soon become a relic of the past. Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk are on the cusp of reshaping connectivity in rural Britain through satellite technology. Musk’s Starlink company, which currently broadcasts home Internet signals from space, is preparing to launch a new generation of satellites capable of linking directly to regular cell phones. Vision: To end “not spots” forever, and transform remote hillsides and valleys into fully connected areas.
Starlink is not alone. The California-based SpaceX subsidiary is pitted against rivals — satellite operators backed by telecom giants and tech giants — who share the ambition of fixing power outages hundreds of miles above Earth. If these plans come true, the thought of losing a mobile phone signal in the remote British countryside could become unthinkable.
However, the race to create “direct-to-device” satellite services is already turbulent, marked by regulatory battles and accusations of “misinformation.” Rival satellite companies have challenged Starlink’s requests for US approval, while SpaceX has responded to what it calls a coordinated campaign to block its advance. The risks are high, and the outcome could reshape telecommunications markets around the world.
In the UK, regulators and networks are warily watching the coming disruption. Inertia and high costs have long hampered improving rural connectivity. One in five areas lack reliable mobile coverage, while one in ten sees no 4G signal at all. Even as government-backed schemes and shared rural networks try to narrow the digital divide, progress remains slow.
The satellite revolution could change that calculation. Technological leaps mean that pocket-sized smartphones could soon pick up signals from low-Earth orbit satellite constellations. Declining launch costs – driven by Musk’s reusable rockets – have made it commercially possible to send thousands of satellites aloft. Already, Apple has partnered with Globalstar to provide emergency text messaging via satellite. This is just an introduction: Future towers could handle mobile Internet connections and even high-bandwidth video calls.
However, the UK’s path is not clear. Ofcom, the communications regulator, aims to develop rules for satellite-to-phone communications, suggesting services could emerge by late 2025 or later. But operators warn that geography and British regulation present obstacles. The UK’s high latitude and the difficulty of controlling ‘borderless’ satellite signals over Europe may slow adoption of the idea. Enders Analytics, a research group, does not expect full coverage in Britain until at least 2026. Moreover, those behind this scenario fear a Trojan horse scenario. The same American tech giants that help fill coverage gaps could become formidable competitors. Apple, which is increasingly designing its own silicon, could create chips optimized for direct communications via satellite, threatening to overtake traditional networks. Starlink may leverage its broadband foothold – 87,000 customers in the UK – to launch a “virtual” mobile network that mixes satellite and terrestrial signals.
But for rural residents, these global technological machinations simply promise to put an end to irregular services. Once-silent corners of the countryside will be buzzing with connectivity, and landline connectivity and the patchy 4G network may finally be cut. Lotte, for example, would not hesitate. “If it came to a vote tomorrow: Would you want satellites to give you a signal? My answer would be yes,” she says. As the satellite wars rage in space and in regulatory corridors, one thing is clear: Elon Musk and his rivals are preparing to bring the world’s remotest places online – and upend a quiet corner of British life in the process.