The Virginia-based company, Lynk, sent its "Shannon" satellite into orbit three months ago as part of a rideshare mission on a Falcon 9 rocket. After some initial tests, the company said "hundreds" of mobile phones in the United States, United Kingdom, and the Bahamas were able to connect with the satellite as it passed overhead, as if it were a virtual cell phone tower in space.
"Basically, our satellite looks to your cell phone like a standard cell tower," said Charles Miller, the co-founder and chief executive of Lynk.
Some technical challenges had to be overcome, as described in the linked article, but I wonder what sort of hurdles the telecoms regulatory issues will impose.
See A Virginia company has connected mobile phones directly to satellites
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Lynk will start with intermittent text messages and expand from there.