Why Virgin Media's Direct to Cell Won't Deliver Broadband Anytime Soon

In October 2025, Virgin Media (one of the UK's largest telecom operators) signed a landmark partnership with Starlink to provide D2C (direct-to-cell) mobile services from 2026. Although this technology will harness the same satellites as those used for Starlink's satellite Wi-Fi, IDTechEx's latest report on 6G, "6G Market 2026-2036: Technology, Trends, Forecasts, Players", unpacks how D2C mobile services face fundamental physical challenges that will affect their performance compared with satellite Wi-Fi.

 

 

Wireless communications have evolved massively in their multi-decade journey, from analogue calls in the 1980s to the hyperconnected world of 5G where movies, zoom calls, and endless tweets are sent invisibly between millions of devices. Up until now, the physical infrastructure anchoring all of this has remained broadly the same, terrestrial base stations and radio masts. However, this legacy infrastructure has proven unable to fully close the so called 'connectivity-gap'. This refers to the number of people living in dead spots for wireless connectivity. As IDTechEx reports, this has steadily fallen from 20% in 2015 to 5% in 2023, an enormous improvement but still representing over 450 million people globally. Many of these people live in rural and remote locations, where the economics and practicalities of deploying terrestrial masts and cables is challenging.

 

 

 

One of the key targets for 6G, the next generation of wireless communications expected to debut in 2030 is ubiquitous connectivity. To achieve this, many are proposing the use of non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) to bring wireless service to these remote and rural areas. NTNs cover a broad range of technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), high-altitude platforms (HAPs), and orbital satellites of various altitudes.

 

The basic tradeoff is that increasing altitude provides much greater coverage (as the transmitter has a much wider line of sight), but costs and latency issues increase. NTN deployment drastically increased with the lowering of orbital launch costs in the late 2010s, with Starlink now providing high-speed Wi-Fi to over 6 million customers in 150 countries with a fleet of nearly 9,000 satellites. A natural progression would be to use the same basic technology to provide this wireless access directly to mobile devices, which would allow global connectivity without the need for line of sight to an antenna. So is the future of telecoms entirely satellite based, and terrestrial radios will be a thing of the past? According to IDTechEx, the answer is no. But why will this approach, known as D2C, will be fundamentally constrained in service offering and be a long way from replacing legacy base stations? The problem boils down to two key issues: physics and economics.

 

 

All wireless communication is based on radio waves, and as the distance between the transmitter (Tx) and the receiver (Rx) increases, so does the FSPL (free-space path loss). Because the signal from the Tx is propagating through free space, it spreads out and loses strength (at a single point). This problem is exacerbated by distance - it is not so much of a problem for a radio mast a few hundred meters away from the Rx but for a satellite up to thousands of km's away, this becomes a major challenge. FSPL is not only affected by distance, but frequency also plays a critical role.

 

In general, higher frequency communications unlock greater bandwidth and therefore higher data rates. However, FSPL scales with the square of frequency, meaning that more signal is lost at higher frequencies. But if Starlink provide up to 300 Mbps data rates in spite of these challenges, why can't D2C? The main difference is equipment - Starlink setups require a dedicated Rx dish, that can detect and amplify much fainter signals than the tiny Rx antenna in an smartphone. Unless smartphone manufacturers decide to integrate significantly larger antennas (very unlikely), then D2C will always offer a more limited connectivity than satellite wi-fi.

 

 

 

While orbital launch costs have been falling precipitously, they remain expensive and thus for commercial operators a clear revenue gain must be on offer. For satellite Wi-Fi, consumers have shown themselves willing to pay $80-120 per month (plus an equipment outlay) to get connectivity - mainly in rural areas where there is little to no alternative. However, for D2C services limited to SMS and texts (calls are being promised but currently unavailable), what will consumers be willing to pay?

 

In the US, T Mobile and Starlink's T-Satellite is being offered at $10-15 per month. For basic emergency coverage only, this seems to be the upper limit for what consumers pay. Despite this much lower selling price, the satellite constellation remains as costly to operate as it does for satellite Wi-Fi. The report "6G Market 2026-2036: Technology, Trends, Forecasts, Players" contains pricing estimates of the cost-to-operator for satellite Wi-Fi, assessing satellite cost, marginal launch cost, and lifetime of the asset - illuminating the economic challenge D2C operators face.

 

 

For more information on this report, including downloadable sample pages, please visit www.IDTechEx.com/6G, or for the full portfolio of related research available from IDTechEx, see www.IDTechEx.com/Research/6G.