Elon Musk’s ‘Space Phone’ Revolution: How Ukraine Beat the Rest of Europe to Starlink Mobile—and What Happens Next
Kyivstar is Europe’s pilot market for Starlink Direct-to-Cell (D2C), beating larger EU operators by at least 12 months in field tests. The rollout is two-phase: OTT messaging and SMS by end-2025, followed by full mobile broadband with voice by Q2 2026. The system is designed to keep phones alive during blackouts and grid outages, providing a tower-free fallback if towers are destroyed. Ukraine’s National Commission for Electronic Communications (NCEC) granted experimental licenses in June 2025, enabling on-orbit texting trials this summer. U.S. lab tests confirmed that a stock Kyivstar SIM can authenticate on the Starlink satellite cell without any firmware