Measuring Usage: What the Evidence Shows
How much is direct-to-device actually used, by whom and where, and how reliable is the evidence?
Chapter summary
The evidence is thin but consistent.
Key takeaways
- 1
Satellite traffic is a tiny fraction of mobile traffic (T-Mobile reported about 0.0002% in May 2026), use is concentrated outdoors in parks, wilderness and along remote roads, it spikes in disasters, and many users connect occasionally rather than regularly.
- 2
Device counts can look large: SpaceX's filing reported about 7.4 million unique devices a month on its mobile services across about 30 countries.
- 3
Independent measurements, chiefly by Ookla, show that cross-carrier users made up about a third of observed T-Satellite connections.
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