Global smartphone connectivity through a swarm of satellites each with a mass of less than 1 kg fabricated using CMOS technology

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1121141

"direct-to-device satellite communication requires massive, expensive satellites, each with its own large antenna, handling weak signals from smartphones, replaced with 10s of 1,000s pico-satellites in formation as single, massive distributed phased-array antenna... gateway satellite broadcasts reference signal allowing all individual pico-satellites to stay perfectly synchronized without physical cables... smallness enables inclusion on commercial rocket launches/ redundancy... high-quality LTE data transmission"