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SpaceX may expand its cellular Starlink system from a few hundred satellites to several thousand, marking a major step in its coverage ambitions.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk teased the ambitious plan on Wednesday tweet: “This is just the beginning.” The company is currently close to operating over 300 cellular Starlink satellites. Once they’re up and running, SpaceX will have enough coverage to transmit cellular connectivity to phones on the ground, starting with text messages to T-Mobile customers.

The cellular Starlink constellation is significantly smaller than Starlink broadband networkwhich spans over 6,000 active satellites and transmits high-speed Internet to dishes on the ground. But that could change in the coming years, Musk says.

“My guess is that there will be as many Starlink direct to mobile satellites as there are to our high bandwidth terminals,” he added in his tweet.

This would lead to a staggering increase in satellites in Earth orbit. The company has developed the cellular Starlink system to help mobile operators serve users in cellular dead zones. Increasing the number of satellites promises to help SpaceX improve coverage, which is also intended to support real-time voice and video calls, in addition to surfing the Internet.

But first SpaceX needs permission from the FCC. The company recently renewed his launch close to 30,000 Starlink satellites; it is currently only authorized to operate close to 12,000.

Rivals, including mobile carriers like AT&T and Verizon, may also object to the ambitious plan, citing concern about the Starlink mobile network causing radio interference. Meanwhile, a growing number of astronomers have already urged the FCC to do so stay expansions of the Starlink network and other “mega-constellations” until a study can examine the environmental effects on Earth’s atmosphere.

Meanwhile, SpaceX is expected to reach the 300-satellite threshold for the mobile Starlink network in the coming weeks. “Only five launches left for Starlink Direct to Cell to complete first commercial constellation,” tweeted Ben Longmier, SpaceX’s senior director of satellite engineering, earlier this week.

Longmier also said the mobile Starlink network works outdoors and indoors if the device is near a window. It can also transfer data to a phone when it is in the user’s possession pocket. That said, the Starlink cellular satellites won’t deliver the same broadband speeds as the regular Starlink network, which can drive download speeds of around 100Mbps or higher in the US.

Musk noted: “As a rough rule of thumb though, bandwidth will be ~1/10th as high for phones compared to a dedicated Starlink antenna (physics is the law). Still a big game changer,” he tweeted. A company test in March showed The technology can transmit a download speed of 17 Mbps.