SpaceX shared plans to create a cellular service during its first earnings call after its IPO, reports Reuters. SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said the company will "build out terrestrial" with the spectrum that it acquired from EchoStar.
She added that SpaceX intends to make Starlink a "true mobile service" that will win "quite a few" customers from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Shotwell declined to discuss the costs involved in the endeavor and said SpaceX had "great and new ideas" on how to build a mobile service, such as a large number of lower-cost base stations paired with Starlink dishes instead of cell towers.
SpaceX agreed to pay $19.6 billion to acquire 65 MHz of wireless spectrum licenses from EchoStar in 2025. The spectrum will allow SpaceX to expand its direct-to-cell Starlink satellite service to include ground-based infrastructure.
Analysts told Reuters that without an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) agreement with a major carrier, it would be extremely difficult for Starlink to compete with AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. 65 MHz is tiny compared to the spectrum owned by the big U.S. mobile operators, and they're unlikely to lease capacity to a competitor.
SpaceX plans to launch its next-generation Starlink Mobile satellites in 2027, and upgraded service that's "100 times better" than current direct-to-cell service is targeted for the end of that year. Shares of AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon fell 2 to 4 percent following the SpaceX earnings call.
SpaceX already has a partnership with T-Mobile to power T-Mobile's T-Satellite feature that offers direct-to-cell satellite connectivity to customers.
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