“MTN South Africa and low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite service company Lynk Global carried out a successful technical trial of one of the first satellite-to-mobile device phone calls in South Africa. The phone call, made in Vryburg, North West, allowed the companies to test voice call quality and SMS capabilities over an LEO satellite connection.”
Once this goes commercial, this will obviously be useful for disasters and very remote areas. Although these satellites will work with ordinary unmodified cellphones, including older models, right now it may not be a 24/7 coverage. I’d imagine though for a commercial service in future there will either need to be more satellites, or there may need to be a few geostationary satellites.
Still, it shows what is possible, and that you don’t necessarily need Starlink to offer such a service.