Company has connected mobile phones directly to satellites

I found more details on the uplink:

https://lynk.world/how-lynk-proved-direct-two-way-satellite-...

I have many doubts. On their technology page ([1]) they mention cell phones have a range of about 35km at most, but their sattelites are 500km up. There's a lot of handwaving about patented technology, but no technology or actual physics of an at most 3 watt signal traveling hundreds of kilometers out of the atmosphere.

[1] https://lynk.world/our-technology

> "Basically, our satellite looks to your cell phone like a standard cell tower"

A satellite connecting directly to any mobile phone by pretending to be a normal cell tower? How is that possible?