On Sat, 18 Feb 2023, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink wrote:

> This requires the satellite to be in view of both terminal and gateway. There 
> is, however, no reason why a user's packets could not travel via a diversity 
> of satellites.

In theory you are correct, but I don't think they are doing that yet. We had a 
discussion of the signaling protocol and someone posted that they had done 
research and found that there was only one satellite illuminating a cell at a 
time. IIRC this was when the paper came out on using starlink signals for 
positioning.

As they launch more satellites and get the in-space routing up and running, I 
expect that they will change that at some point.

it is an interesting question.

David Lang