Iridium does inter-satellite linkage with RF, Starlink intends to use laser comms. The advantage being much higher bandwidth, and not having to license the spec

Iridium does inter-satellite linkage with RF, Starlink intends to use laser comms. The advantage being much higher bandwidth, and not having to license the spectrum. The laser comms are very much on the roadmap, however they were not ready in time for the first launch, and SpaceX has a hard deadline to meet for getting sats up there, so the first generation is going to just bounce your signal back to a ground station. (Which will bounce it to the next visible sat to push it forwards, unless it has fiber.)