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Let's take China for instance. They can prosecute the the customers, interfere with the communications, prevent the building of or seize the ground stations (eventually the laser links could get around that), can blow the satelites up with missiles (though that is not likely), and in general prevent any future authorized business that Starlink might want to do.

If I were in charge, I'd try to get licensed and be able to collect money from customers there.

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Even India forbids sat phones except Inmarsat which they can monitor. But that's only one of the many networks. You can get in real trouble with one.

I wonder what will happen now that every phone will become a sat phone.

Same as with drones - vendors will geofence them

> I wonder what will happen now that every phone will become a sat phone.

Governments that don't want that will disallow the sale of such phones inside their country unless the manufacturer disables the satellite features for customers there.

Sure, some will get through via illegal imports, but largely this will be effective.

Until someone 'accidentally' releases update that enables feature and now you have a critical mass that you can't enforce laws on..?

Can’t enforce laws? Nerds will look for any opening for a techno-anarchist utopia. Most people are going to give up their phone when even remotely threatened. Before things even get to that point, there are lots of other levers to pull to stop people from getting access to an (esp. paid) service.

You know how 911 works without a valid cell plan?

Hypothetically, in the event of a war or similar unrest, the US could use satellite cell 'towers' to give an entire country limited connectivity with old devices people have stashed away in some drawer or closet without otherwise active cell plans, which are therefore off the local government's radar. People could be coerced to turn over the phones the government knows about but still retain some connectivity.

Speeding is illegal yet most people do it because it’s impossible to enforce. There are (and aren’t) tons of laws that are like that.

That's what they did up to now but that doesn't work anymore. Starlink direct to cell works with any unmodified smartphone. They can't ban all of those and throw their country back 20 years :)

I'll believe it when I see it.

Never underestimate the violent stupidity a government will employ in pursuit of retaining its power.

most governments like this are technically incompetent and will be unable to prevent.

The difference with these new satellite systems (if they can deliver what they promise) is that every phone sold within the past few years is essentially compatible.

At that point, you could only request that phone manufacturers retroactively provide firmware updates that ban these networks, or maybe make it hard to get SIMs allowed to connect to them (but then there's eSIMs too).

I think in practice we'll see a combination of these countries applying legal/economical pressure on the operators and jamming, with larger/less isolated countries leaning on the former, and the others on the latter.

Huh? Any particular reason why?

They say it's for terrorism reasons. They consider them a 'threat to national security': https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-satellite-phones-in-de...

Also: https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/64974/why-are-sat...

Because religiously motivated totalitarianism is a bad form of government.

- "Even India"

India routinely does total communications blackouts, so the satellite phone ban is unsurprising, in that context.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20701204 ("India Shut Down Kashmir’s Internet Access")

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10126931 ("India turned off mobile internet for 63M citizens amid protests in Ahmedabad")

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25972620 ("India protests: Internet cut to hunger-striking farmers in Delhi")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932021_Jammu_and_Ka... ("2019–2021 Jammu and Kashmir lockdown")

If you don't have enough things to worry about: the US has exactly the same legal powers—in fact they're national security powers the President can invoke unilaterally,

https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/22/representatives-propose-bi... ("Representatives propose bill limiting presidential internet ‘kill switch’")

> If you don't have enough things to worry about: the US has exactly the same legal powers—in fact they're national security powers the President can invoke unilaterally,

I'm not in the US so I don't worry about that. But the US doesn't seem to actually use it as India does.

And besides I have other communications options if that would happen.

Theoretically speaking, could you use high power lasers to overheat the satellites to the point that they break and permanently stop working?

I've had this idea on my mind for quite a while now, because some time ago I heard something about Starlink painting their satellites black, which reminded me of the "it's hotter in a black car" thing.

There is a known threat in using lasers to damage the solar cells which would lead to the batteries fully discharging and the satellite becoming useless for lack of electrical power.

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