Standard cellular protocols assume stationary base stations, causing packet collisions and dropped calls when communicating with low-Earth orbit satellites moving at 17,000 mph. Because Starlink uses phased-array narrow beams, a standard smartphone at the center of a spot beam is physically closer to the satellite than a phone at the perimeter, creating microsecond propagation discrepancies across beam footprints. SpaceX patent US 12,757,141 B1 solves this on the satellite rather than the handset: an onboard digital buffer dynamically calculates geometric distance for each active beam, holding packets from faster, closer beams so that signals across all beams arrive simultaneously with the slowest beam. This creates a uniform artificial latency plane that allows unmodified LTE smartphones to maintain synchronized connections from orbit. patents.google.com