It's not as crazy as it first sounds. In the lower frequency bands assigned to LTE and 5G (600/700/850MHz) that are meant for rural base stations are essentiall

It's not as crazy as it first sounds. In the lower frequency bands assigned to LTE and 5G (600/700/850MHz) that are meant for rural base stations are essentially limited by line of sight when talking about traditional base stations. A 100m/300ft radio tower can see about 40km, just one order of magnitude less than the distance to a Starlink satellite. We know phones can reach base stations at least twice as far away as our theoretical 100m tower because of quotes about the ranges of base stations on mountains. The rest they likely make up with better beam forming and relative lack of reflections when communicating with a satellite overhead