You don't get to beat physics just by being in orbit. Transmitting from a cell phone at a distance of 500km (in the best case) versus less than a dozen for a cell tower still makes things difficult. This will never be competitive with even moderately dense cell tower deployments. It does however put a global floor on cell service and stops the need to build cell towers in almost uninhabited deserts, or on every mountain top to reach every narrow valley in the mountains.
Even mass produced, a "cell phone tower in space" is going to inherently be massively larger and more sensitive than a tower on Earth. It does however let providers/governments focus investment on where people are rather than needing to maintain very remote towers for the very few that use them.
If cost is of no concern you could build a network of satellites with similar performance to what is available on the ground, the cost will be eye watering however and a waste compared to building it on Earth. The “floor” I reference is in terms of the crossover point in cost versus the alternative. I don’t know where that precisely will be given it depends on the internal proprietary costs of the businesses in question.
Even mass produced, a "cell phone tower in space" is going to inherently be massively larger and more sensitive than a tower on Earth. It does however let providers/governments focus investment on where people are rather than needing to maintain very remote towers for the very few that use them.