This is the nomad dream. Have a single phone service and wander anywhere on the planet with it. No more having to swap SIMs out on every border, being unable to use text-based 2FA, forcing friends to contact only via messaging apps, system messages in a foreign language, etc.

It's not the coverage; that's mostly good. It's not the price; mostly SIM cards and plans are cheaper when travelling than they are at home. It's the hassle of swapping SIMs every time you cross a border.

There are already services like Firsty[1] that use an eSIM to achieve this.

1. https://www.firsty.app/

Starlink isn't meant to be your primary cell service, and likely will never be, considering people are rarely within direct line of sight to the sky when they need to use their phone.

There are travel SIM cards already. Many work in most countries, some even on planes and ships.

Personally, I still buy SIM cards (or, more recently, eSIM plans). Not so hard, but way cheaper, and you can get a local number and use with local services that require one.

I've been using data-only plans since 2015 combined with voip.ms VoIP numbers (for Toronto and SF). This means I could travel and pop in a prepaid SIM card whenever I went anywhere and not have any problems using data-based messaging services (Signal/WhatsApp/iMessage).

As of this year I ditched my T-Mobile prepaid data SIM and exclusively use prepaid eSIMs (esimdb.com has a great comparison, but Nomad makes it very easy with their app). So I still have to "swap sims" but it's all done on the iPhone itself, no need to bring a sim ejector/paperclip.

What's really funny is that last week my eSIM ran out (I forgot to top up) and my 16 Pro connected to the satellite network (since it assumed no service was available I guess?), where I was able to use iMessage (in the limited way (to individuals, not groups)).

Most nomads don't really care for cell phones? This is the facsimile of the idea for people that want the benefits of travel without the negatives of no fixed relationships.

Which isn't really a negative to this. Indeed, if you have the means, I'd say go for it.

It's been possible to solve these problems by using Google Fi for many years now.

Direct to Cell is not usable LTE service. It doesn't have the bandwidth. It is effectively 2G or satellite phone, with messages, voice calls, and slow data.

google fi for the past decade has given me exactly this, with top speed data connectivity at $10/GB no matter where.