To begin with, people could use texting to signal for help if need be, no matter where they are, as long as they have a clear view of the sky.AST SpaceMobile says that as the company adds satellites, it will be up to its mobile-network-operator (MNO) partners to decide whether to market the bandwidth in small increments to many users for texting or voice-only calls or to offer data-heavy services to select users.It’s only going to make people want more.” The tech that’s moving cell towers into space his mock-up shows the app for Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite, which enables emergency texting in areas with no terrestrial coverage.Apple These new offerings are possible thanks to a handful of advances that are now maturing.That technology makes it viable to pack more antenna capability into less space—Lynk will start with relatively small 1-square-meter antennas, but it plans to install bigger, more effective ones on its satellites in the future.Satellites Deployed by End of 2023 Planned Constellation Size Orbital Height of Constellation Constellation Completion Date Size of Individual Satellites AST SpaceMobile 5 Block 1 Bluebirds ~170 satellites 550-700 km First commercial service in 2024 Block 1 Bluebirds: 64 m2 antennas Block 2 Bluebirds: 128 m2 antennas Lynk Global 12 satellites 5,110 satellites 500 km 2027 First generation: 1 m2 satellites Second generation: 4 m2 satellites Even so, having phones communicate with satellites rather than cell towers is tricky because of the much larger signal delays."