> Even though a satellite in LEO is significantly farther away than the average cellphone tower, would it work because line-of-sight is improved? No, because

> Even though a satellite in LEO is significantly farther away than the average cellphone tower, would it work because line-of-sight is improved? No, because you need loads of the things. They don't just hover overhead a few hundred km up, they orbit once every couple of hours. And if you want one to remain within that distance, you need a bunch in completely different orbits, launched at different times, to maintain coverage. Iridium took almost 80 satellites at 800km up, for instance. The higher up you go, the less satellites you need, but the bigger the handset gets, and speed-of-light delay becomes an annoyance.