Early Ookla signal scan data shows broad but shallow uptake across UK not-spots, as Ofcom’s first-mover framework turns the market into Europe’s direct-to-device testbed

The UK has become the first country in Western Europe where a smartphone can reach a satellite directly without specialist hardware or a separate app. Virgin Media O2 launched O2 Satellite on February 26, 2026, using SpaceX’s Starlink Mobile constellation over licensed 1800 MHz spectrum, and priced it at £3 per month on Pay Monthly plans or at no extra cost on high-end “Ultimate” tariffs. The launch follows a partnership announced in October 2025 and an Ofcom authorization framework finalized in December 2025.

Analysis of Ookla’s background signal scan data captures that launch from the real-world handset side. Between July 2025 and March 2026, the number of unique monthly UK users registering with a direct-to-device (D2D) satellite rose from negligible early levels to a clearly visible footprint, an order-of-magnitude shift that has already lifted the U.K. from a rounding error in our global D2D dataset to the world’s third-largest market by unique-user count by March 2026, behind only the United States and Australia and ahead of Canada, Chile, and Peru.

Key Takeaways:

• The UK has quickly become one of the largest detected D2D markets globally, but not one of the deepest. By March 2026, the UK ranked third among countries with live commercial D2D services by detected D2D users, behind the U.S. and Australia, but only eighth by D2D user share and ninth by D2D scans per detected user. In the U.K., the dominant pattern appears to be many users briefly crossing into satellite-eligible conditions, with relatively few remaining on D2D for extended periods.
  
• D2D utilization within the UK mobile base reached 0.30% in March 2026 (based on the share of all mobile users coming from D2D), and scans per D2D user averaged four, well below Canada’s 29. The utilization rate matches the US nine months into its T-Mobile service, and within VMO2’s addressable base utilization rises to approximately 1.4%, in line with more mature D2D markets.
  
• Geographic concentration tracks the UK’s known coverage gaps. From November 2025 onward, we observed D2D samples lighting up across the Scottish Highlands, the Outer Hebrides, the Welsh uplands, the Southwest peninsula, and the North York Moors, the same areas Ofcom’s Connected Nations 2025 report identifies as all-operator coverage blackspots and that the £1.3 billion Shared Rural Network is committed to closing by January 2027.
  
• A multi-operator D2D split is already forming in the UK. VodafoneThree received Ofcom’s second D2D license variation on April 15, 2026 on 900 MHz (Band 8), paired with AST SpaceMobile’s broadband-capable BlueBird satellites through Satellite Connect Europe. BT/EE has not yet announced a D2D handset service and is instead prioritising fixed Starlink broadband. It also appears best placed to support any satellite layer for the UK’s Emergency Services Network, the national communications platform being built to connect police, fire, ambulance and other first responders.

Methodological note: This analysis draws on nine months of Ookla signal scan data from UK Android handsets that registered at least once with a known D2D carrier network between July 2025 and March 2026. Coverage is limited to recent Samsung flagships, reflecting O2’s narrower device support versus more mature D2D services elsewhere. Our data shows O2 Satellite emerging in the data before its public launch on February 26, 2026, then scaling across the first full month of commercial availability.

O2 Satellite was already ramping before the public launch

Virgin Media O2 announced its Starlink Direct to Cell (D2C) partnership on October 30, 2025, describing O2 Satellite as a service that would initially provide messaging and data, work automatically in areas without traditional O2 coverage, and aim to raise O2 landmass coverage from 89% to more than 95% within 12 months of launch. The same announcement said internal trials were already underway.

Analysis of our background signal scan data offers the first clear empirical sign of a structured internal rollout becoming visible in passive measurement before any public announcement. UK detected D2D users were essentially negligible and flat between July and October 2025. In November, during the period in which VMO2 publicly noted that its employees were “already using the technology in real-world conditions across the country,” we captured a sharp inflection in usage, with activity moving well above the Q3 2025 baseline by the end of 2025.

The second inflection landed in February 2026, when Ofcom granted VMO2 its first D2D license variation on 17 February. The Exemption Regulations came into force on February 25th, and the consumer service switched on the following day. As a result, detected D2D activity stepped up again in both February and March post-launch and is now scaling further.

The UK’s early D2D usage is broad, but still shallow

The UK ranked third globally by unique D2D users by March 2026 in our dataset, with 11% of the world’s tracked D2D user count, behind the U.S. at 37% and Australia at 14%. It sits ahead of Peru, Canada, Chile, Ukraine, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, and Japan. On scan volume the UK is sixth, a more modest figure that reflects how recently the O2 service launched and how little behavioral load each UK user is yet carrying.

To clarify, a unique detected user means a device appeared on a D2D network (like Starlink Mobile) at least once in the month. Scans per detected user indicate how much repeat background activity (or usage of the D2D service) those detected users generated.

In the context of the UK data, this means the initial D2D service is appearing across a meaningful detected user base, but each detected user is generating relatively few satellite scans. For example, one user might take a long trip into the backcountry, generating lots of scans over the course of days. Another user might briefly link to a satellite during a walk in the country, generating only one scan. Both are considered unique D2D users, but one generates far more scans. That points to short or intermittent satellite registrations, a fallback service that appears at the edge of terrestrial coverage (which may be less likely to be encountered frequently in the U.K. compared to other large landmass countries due to the very high level of urbanization, see below), and a product that is still constrained by few supported devices (only the two most recent generations of Samsung flagships are supported), supported apps, outdoor use, and the requirement for an open view of the sky.

It would be premature to read scan depth alone as a direct measure of user engagement or paying customers at this early stage. Background scan cadence, device mix, app eligibility, operating-system behavior, and movement patterns all affect the data. Even so, the cross-country contrast is large enough to be analytically useful here. In the U.K., the dominant pattern appears to be many users briefly crossing into satellite-eligible conditions, with relatively few remaining on D2D for extended periods. Penetration within the mobile base (based on the share of all signal scans) reached 0.30% in March 2026, compared with 0.46% in the U.S., 0.70% in Canada, 1.26% in Chile, and 1.91% in New Zealand. That places U.K. penetration at roughly the level the U.S. had reached within its first nine months of service. Within VMO2’s addressable base, and assuming our background scans distribute across U.K. operators in approximate proportion to their mobile market share, penetration rises to approximately 1.4% in March 2026, closer to more established markets despite only six weeks of commercial service.

The contrast with the U.S. and Canada is instructive. Both those markets have seen D2D user counts fall since summer 2025, by 17% and 48% respectively through March 2026, coinciding with T-Mobile and Rogers ending their initial free-trial D2D tiers and moving to pricing gated by high-tier plans. VMO2 launched with a £3 bolt-on and free inclusion on its Ultimate tariffs from day one. The U.K. model therefore likely avoids the drop that free-trial expiration has produced in mature markets, though whether that pricing structure holds as the service scales beyond the early-adopter cohort is an open question. Seasonality is also likely to matter: outdoor travel and recreation typically dip in winter and should be watched again through spring and summer 2026.

The geospatial pattern shows D2D forming at the edge of O2’s network

Analysis of the geospatial distribution of the U.K. D2D usage shows three phases between November 2025 and March 2026. In November and December, the footprint was sparse and more concentrated in southern and eastern England (likely reflecting early testing), including areas closer to higher population density and travel corridors. By January and February, detections had spread more clearly into Wales, the Midlands, northern England, and Scotland (concentrated in the areas that Ofcom’s Connected Nations reports identify as the U.K.’s most coverage-constrained, which also happen to be popular for outdoor activities).

This pattern is important because it complicates the idea that D2D demand is only about the most remote places. O2 Satellite works where the main O2 network is unavailable and satellite coverage is available (notably excluding the major indoor cellular coverage gaps that persist), which means it can matter in partial not-spots as well as total not-spots. A partial not-spot can still be a real coverage gap for an O2 customer, even if another mobile operator has terrestrial service there. In practical terms, a hillwalking route, coastal road, or visitor-heavy rural area can be a D2D use case even when it is not a vast wilderness.

In Scotland, D2D usage clusters have been observed in Argyll and Bute, the Northwest Highlands, the Inner Hebrides, and the Outer Hebrides. Ofcom’s latest figures put Scotland at 89% 4G coverage from at least one operator and 65% from all four, the lowest in the U.K., and parts of the Highlands and Islands still sit materially below that average. These are the places where a satellite-to-phone overlay has the most work to do, and they show up distinctly in our data.

A second cluster runs through Wales, concentrating in Powys, Gwynedd, and mid-Ceredigion. A third picks up across the Southwest peninsula, particularly North Devon, Exmoor, Bodmin Moor, and West Cornwall. A fourth sits across the North of England, across the Yorkshire Dales, the North York Moors, Northumberland, and parts of the Lake District. The East Anglian coast and the Lincolnshire Wolds complete the rural pattern.

This is why the overlap with Shared Rural Network target areas matters. The SRN is the £1.3 billion joint program between the four U.K. operators and government designed to raise all-operator 4G coverage to 89.2% of U.K. landmass by January 2027, with Scotland and Wales carrying the largest share of the uplift. As of the 2025 update, Extended Area Service site deployments are contributing an additional 0.25% to 1% of UK landmass coverage across operators, and 40 Scottish SRN sites are now live.

Our data suggests that for many of the same locations, D2D is now delivering a first-layer (albeit highly constrained in its current form) connectivity experience well before the SRN timeline concludes. This helps explain why early U.K. detections can appear around populated and visitor-heavy regions rather than only in the least populated parts of the country. The relevant question is not simply where the U.K. is empty but where compatible O2 customers, outdoor use, travel patterns, coastal and upland activity, and O2-specific terrestrial gaps overlap.

O2’s own launch framing points to that same use case. The operator described the service as helping users when hiking, climbing, doing water sports, sailing, or traveling in rural, coastal, and remote locations. The early geospatial evidence fits that edge-coverage proposition better than it fits a pure wilderness-connectivity proposition (aligning with trends we observed in the U.S. previously, where D2D usage skews toward national parks and popular hiking areas).

European geography makes D2D different from Australia, Canada, Chile, and Peru

As mentioned, the U.K.’s early D2D usage profile looks different from lower-density and more geographically expansive markets. World Bank data puts the U.K. at about 283 people per km2 in 2023, compared with about 3.5 in Australia, 4.6 in Canada, 26.5 in Chile, and 26.4 in Peru. The U.K. also has a much smaller land area than those markets and a dense pattern of towns, roads, and transport corridors.

That matters for D2D because the U.K.’s commercial opportunity is not primarily about bringing basic connectivity to vast unserved interiors. Instead, it is about filling residual gaps in a market where terrestrial mobile networks already cover most outdoor premises and much of the country’s landmass, but where rural, coastal, upland, road, indoor, and operator-specific gaps remain highly consequential for users.

This makes O2 Satellite (and future competing D2D services in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe) strategically different from a terrestrial substitute. O2 says the service lifts its landmass coverage from 89% to 95%, equivalent to an area around two-thirds the size of Wales. But O2 Satellite is not equivalent to Ofcom’s good-quality 4G coverage definition, which includes a sustained 2 Mbps downlink and the ability to sustain a 90-second voice call. O2’s own public help page confirms that standard text messaging and standard voice calls, including emergency calls, are not currently supported on O2 Satellite, and that 999 texts and government emergency alerts are similarly unavailable while connected to the service. This distinction matters commercially (especially for the towerco business model) and politically, since it means satellite coverage is not yet interchangeable with terrestrial mobile coverage such as that delivered by the SRN. That will very likely change as D2D solutions become more capable.

Ofcom’s framework turned U.K. D2D into a first-mover licensable mobile service

The U.K.’s D2D market was the first in Western Europe because the U.K.’s regulator acted first. Ofcom’s December 2025 statement set out a framework for authorizing D2D in mobile spectrum that was the earliest in any European country and broadly followed the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Supplemental Coverage from Space model in the U.S., though it extended authorization across a wider set of eligible bands, including 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1400 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2.1 GHz, and 2.6 GHz.

The authorization works through two instruments. The first is a license exemption for handsets and SIM-enabled devices, made under section 8(3) of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006, which came into force on February 25, 2026 (applying in the U.K. and territorial seas, excluding the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man). The second is a variation to each mobile network operator’s existing wireless telegraphy license to add a D2D schedule on specific bands. VMO2 received the first such variation on 17 February 2026 on 1800 MHz (Band 3).

This spectrum choice has important operational consequences. Band 3 is a mainstream global LTE and 5G carrier, supported on almost every modern smartphone, which means handset compatibility for O2 Satellite is effectively a question of which devices VMO2 whitelists rather than which devices can physically receive the signal.

The date sequence also shows how directly regulation shaped launch timing. Ofcom received Telefónica (O2 owner) UK’s completed application on January 28, 2026, published notice of its intent to vary the license on February 4, approved the variation on February 12, made the exemption regulations on February 16, and said those regulations were intended to come into effect on February 25. O2 launched O2 Satellite on February 26.

The UK is moving from first launch to competitive testbed

O2 has a first-mover advantage in U.K. D2D, but it is unlikely to remain the only U.K. D2D architecture for long. On April 15, 2026, Ofcom granted a second D2D license variation to VodafoneThree on 900 MHz Band 8, authorizing a service that will run over AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird satellites through the Satellite Connect Europe joint venture Vodafone Group and AST announced in early 2025. VodafoneThree has said customer trials will begin in summer 2026, with commercial launch targeted for the end of the year.

VodafoneThree is positioning its upcoming D2D service around data, voice, and SMS, which differs from O2’s current app-based data proposition and lack of standard voice and SMS. That reflects a constraint of Starlink’s large first-generation constellation, which is optimised for LTE messaging and low-throughput data, but should improve materially as V2 satellites add more capable payloads, greater cell capacity, and a broader spectrum base to support richer handset services.

The use of the 900 MHz band for VodafoneThree’s service also creates a different radio and device context from O2’s 1800 MHz implementation, although real-world performance will depend on satellite payloads, beam design, power limits, device support, software behavior, and interference constraints as much as on frequency alone.

Taken together, this means that the U.K. could become one of the first markets where two satellite-to-smartphone models are tested under the same national regulator, but with different operator spectrum positions, satellite partners, service propositions, and launch timing.

BT, which runs the U.K.’s largest mobile network through EE, has taken a different path. It announced a Starlink partnership in early 2026, but only for fixed home broadband to hard-to-reach premises, not for D2D handset services. That positions BT as the natural incumbent for any Emergency Services Network satellite D2D overlay, particularly because ESN is designed around resilient nationwide coverage for police, fire, ambulance, and other public safety users. The UK Space Agency opened a formal industry call on this in January 2026, but EE is still left without a consumer D2D handset product at a moment when its two largest mobile competitors are both moving.

The MVNO layer adds a further wrinkle, with Sky Mobile, Tesco Mobile, and Giffgaff on VMO2 and iD Mobile and SMARTY on VodafoneThree, each a potential future D2D reseller.

Europe still has to solve the harmonization question

The UK moved quickly because Ofcom created a national authorization route for D2D in mobile spectrum. The European Union is working through a more complex harmonization problem.

The Radio Spectrum Policy Group’s June 2025 D2D opinion was explicit about that tension. It said that D2D in harmonized ECS mobile bands is currently not possible in EU Member State ECS licenses, because those licenses and technical harmonization decisions were built for terrestrial mobile use. The RSPG recommended that the European Commission issue a mandate to CEPT to develop harmonized technical conditions for D2D-IMT satellite operations in ECS harmonized bands, with follow-up after WRC-27.

The WRC-27 link is important because Agenda Item 1.13 will test the global framework for connecting satellites directly to ordinary IMT handsets through mobile-satellite service allocations, including how those services can coexist with terrestrial mobile networks in bands between 694/698 MHz and 2.7 GHz.

This matters for operators and satellite providers because D2D becomes much more valuable when roaming, interference management, device support, emergency service obligations, lawful intercept, privacy, competition, and market access can be handled consistently across borders. That cross-border layer is now moving from theory into commercial reality, with Rogers extending satellite-to-mobile roaming for Canadian customers in the U.S. and KDDI expanding au Starlink Direct roaming from the U.S. to Canada, the Philippines, and New Zealand from June 2026.

The issue also intersects with the European Commission’s separate assessment of the future use of the EU 2 GHz MSS band, where current authorisations for Viasat and EchoStar expire in May 2027. That band is central to broader debates about 3GPP NTN, MSS continuity, potential new entrants, and European strategic autonomy, but would require new handsets to put into action.

The U.K. is therefore both ahead of much of Europe and still linked to European outcomes. Cross-border coordination, WRC-27 decisions, CEPT technical conditions, satellite market-access safeguards, and the availability of compatible devices will all shape how quickly D2D scales from national firsts to mass-market coverage features.