When Olivia Lott left her job in London for a village in rural Devon, she expected a slower pace of life, but not the near-total absence of mobile reception.
With patchy phone signals forcing her to trek into the hills just to make phone calls, Lott eventually resorted to installing a landline, a rarity among her fellow millennials. “Sometimes I like the peace and quiet,” she says, “but if my Wi-Fi goes out, I’m stuck. I have to go into town to find a cafe where I can work.”
This digital isolation may soon be a relic of the past. Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk are poised to revolutionize connectivity in Britain’s rural areas through satellite technology. Musk’s Starlink, which currently beams internet signals from space, is about to launch a new generation of satellites that can connect directly to regular cell phones. The vision: put an end to ‘not spots’ forever and transform remote hills and valleys into fully connected zones.
Starlink is not alone. California-based subsidiary SpaceX joins rivals – satellite operators backed by telecom and tech giants – who share an ambition to fix power outages hundreds of miles above Earth. If these plans come to fruition, the idea of losing mobile signal in the remote British countryside could become unthinkable.
Yet the race to create “direct-to-device” satellite services is already turbulent, marked by regulatory battles and accusations of “disinformation.” Rival satellite companies have challenged Starlink’s bids for US approval, while SpaceX has fired back at what it calls an orchestrated campaign to block its progress. The stakes are high, and the outcome could reshape telecom markets worldwide.
In Britain, regulators and networks are keeping a close eye on the coming disruption. Inertia and rising costs have long hindered improvements in rural connectivity. One in five areas have no reliable mobile coverage, while one in ten see no 4G signal at all. Even as government-backed programs and shared rural networks seek to narrow the digital divide, progress remains slow.
The satellite revolution could change that calculation. Technological leaps mean that pocket-sized smartphones will soon be able to pick up signals from constellations of satellites in low Earth orbit. Plummeting launch costs – powered by Musk’s reusable rockets – have made it commercially viable to send thousands of satellites into the sky. Apple is already working with Globalstar to offer emergency text messaging via satellite. Here’s a preview: Future constellations could handle mobile Internet connections and even high-bandwidth video calls.
Yet the British path is not easy. Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, is looking to develop rules for satellite-to-phone connections, suggesting services could arrive in late 2025 or beyond. But operators warn that British geography and regulations pose hurdles. Britain’s wide leeway and the difficulty of monitoring “borderless” satellite signals over Europe could delay its adoption. Enders Analysis, a research group, does not expect full coverage in Britain until 2026. Moreover, incumbents fear a Trojan horse scenario. The same U.S. tech giants that help fill the coverage gaps could become formidable competitors. Apple, which is increasingly designing its own silicon, could create chipsets optimized for direct satellite connections, threatening to bypass traditional networks. Starlink could leverage its broadband position – 87,000 UK customers – to launch a ‘virtual’ mobile network combining satellites and terrestrial signals.
For rural residents, however, these global technical machinations simply promise an end to patchy services. The once quiet corners of the countryside will be buzzing with connectivity, and the disconnect between landlines and patchy 4G may finally break. Lott, for example, wouldn’t hesitate. “If it were to be voted on tomorrow: would you want satellites to give you a signal? My answer would be yes,” she says. As the satellite wars play out in space and in regulation, one thing is clear: Elon Musk and his rivals are poised to bring the world’s most remote places online – and upend a quiet corner of British life in the process to put.