This mid-band S-spectrum offers excellent propagation characteristics but phones will need new chips to work with the spectrum band.

DTC is an emerging service and we are going from it barely works in 2025 to a mature mostly 4G service in 2028. In 2025, SpaceX Starlink is the only continuous coverage service with basic texting, voice and low speed data service. All providers will build out coverage and reliability in 2026. I am projecting the DTC transition to 4G speed and services as satellites and satellite optimized phones are deployed in 2026-2028.

2027 is when higher speed direct to satellite services and phones to support them will be good for early adopters of 3G-4G. 2028 is when this will be reliable and fast with the full 15,000 Starlink satellite constellation and lots of bandwidth will have been acquired.

The rollout of satellites and phones is explained in the Nextbigfuture.substack.com article.