SpaceX has agreed to buy a nationwide portfolio of low-band mobile spectrum licences in the United States, a step the company says clears the way for its Starlink Mobile unit to operate as a major US mobile carrier. The agreement, announced late on Thursday 8 October after US markets closed, was followed by heavy falls in the share prices of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile US, according to TelecomTV.
Key facts
- The deal covers up to 14 megahertz of paired spectrum in the 800 MHz band, nationwide, SpaceX said in its announcement, as reported by The Express Tribune.
- The seller is Grain Management, a US investment firm that holds telecoms infrastructure and spectrum assets, TelecomTV reported.
- The transaction requires final approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the US telecoms regulator.
- Neither side disclosed a price. A figure of about $8 billion in cash has circulated, but only at third hand: kucoin, a crypto-exchange news feed rather than a telecoms or financial publication, relayed it from Forbes, which in turn cited The Wall Street Journal. Neither SpaceX nor Grain has confirmed the number, and no filing supporting it has been published.
- On Friday 9 October, T-Mobile closed down 13.27% at $148.58, AT&T fell 9.81% and Verizon fell 8.75%, while the S&P 500 rose 0.59% and SpaceX itself gained about 1.3%, kucoin reported. Those closing figures come from the same aggregator rather than from exchange data or a company filing.
The accounts differ on timing: TelecomTV and The Express Tribune date the announcement to late Thursday, while kucoin says the agreement was reached on Friday 9 October, with the selloff beginning after Thursday’s post-market statement.
Why it matters
Starlink Mobile currently reaches phones only from orbit, and satellite signals perform poorly indoors, which has made it hard for satellite-only phone services to match terrestrial networks inside homes and offices, kucoin reported. Low-band spectrum travels further and passes through walls more easily.
The purchase concerns Starlink Mobile, SpaceX’s direct-to-phone business, and not the residential Starlink dish service. None of the sources links it to home broadband hardware costs or subscription pricing, which SpaceX sets separately market by market.
How SpaceX says the network will work
Once the FCC signs off, SpaceX plans a hybrid architecture combining its satellite-to-mobile constellation with terrestrial deployment, TelecomTV reported. The company says Starlink Mobile’s global 2 GHz mid-band spectrum, acquired last year from EchoStar, the US satellite and pay-TV group, will carry high-bandwidth capacity in the US, while the 800 MHz holdings supply the coverage layer. SpaceX said the new licences address “one of the key remaining technical gaps” on the path to becoming a major carrier, in wording quoted by TelecomTV; on X, Elon Musk called the Grain deal the last critical piece of the spectrum puzzle needed for complete phone coverage in America, the same outlet reported.
SpaceX also says Starlink Mobile is expected to be the first network operator to deploy both satellite and terrestrial spectrum, according to kucoin. The Express Tribune reported that the FCC separately approved SpaceX’s next-generation Starlink Mobile constellation application in the same week, authorising 15,000 satellites optimised for global operations using 2 GHz spectrum, plus additional bands letting those satellites use Starlink’s existing ground gateway network. SpaceX says its V2 satellites will deliver more than 100 times the bandwidth of the current generation directly to unmodified devices; that FCC authorisation for 15,000 satellites is the global half of the plan, while the 800 MHz licences are US-only.
Spectrum that was T-Mobile’s two months ago
The licences have changed hands twice in quick succession: Grain Management bought the portfolio from T-Mobile US earlier this year, TelecomTV reported, and kucoin noted that the spectrum T-Mobile sold is now heading to a company investors see as its new competitor.
SpaceX argues the airwaves have gone unused for more than a decade and promises rapid deployment, which TelecomTV said leaves the company confident of FCC approval because the regulator wants valuable spectrum put to use rather than hoarded.
Carriers and analysts push back
TelecomTV reported that Musk set out the plan to build an extensive small cell network across the US in August, during SpaceX’s first earnings call as a listed company, telling investors the resulting network could be better and higher bandwidth than what cellular providers offer now. Industry executives have dismissed it since: Tim Höttges, chief executive of Deutsche Telekom, majority shareholder of T-Mobile US, called some claims “far-fetched and conceptual” last month, and AT&T chairman and chief executive John Stankey described the small cell rollout as “not viable” economically and technologically.
Stankey has also said satellite-to-cell services solve the last 2% of coverage, not the other 98%, and Verizon chief executive Dan Schulman has pointed to fundamental physical limitations in urban and suburban areas — both quotes reaching this article through kucoin rather than through a transcript or recording. It was kucoin’s own reading, not that of any named analyst or bank note, that the 800 MHz layer is aimed squarely at those objections and that this explains the scale of the market reaction. TelecomTV noted the three major US operators have formed a direct-to-device joint venture intended to encourage alternatives to the partnership model Starlink Mobile has used with mobile operators, including its existing T-Satellite work with T-Mobile.
On the financial side, kucoin said analysts cited by CNBC disagree on when any impact lands but broadly agree on the long-term direction, and that most analysts and the carriers themselves see limited short-term effect because a terrestrial network needs years, many base stations and heavy capital, with SpaceX still holding less spectrum than the three big US carriers. Telecompaper, a telecoms trade publication writing in its own commentary, expects the impact to fall mainly on the US market and to be gradual, and questions SpaceX’s motive for entering mobile given the capital demands of its other businesses — a debate in which analysts remain split on what Starlink Mobile is worth. The FCC review, the carriers’ next results and SpaceX’s eventual pricing are the next hard data points.
Frequently Asked Questions
When will Starlink Mobile start selling service on the new spectrum, and at what price?
SpaceX has not said. No launch date or pricing for service on the new band has been announced, as kucoin reported, and SpaceX says deployment begins only once the FCC gives final approval.
Will existing phones work with Starlink Mobile’s 800 MHz spectrum?
SpaceX says most existing mobile devices already support the band, according to its announcement as reported by TelecomTV and The Express Tribune. Neither report lists specific handsets, chipsets or carriers.
What did T-Mobile get when it sold the 800 MHz licences?
T-Mobile completed the sale of its 800 MHz portfolio to Grain Management on 11 August 2026, receiving $2.9 billion in cash plus all of Grain’s 600 MHz spectrum licences, according to kucoin, which did not cite a filing or company statement for those terms.
When do the affected carriers report results?
Verizon was due to report third-quarter earnings on 26 October 2026 and T-Mobile on 28 October, kucoin reported. The same report said Scotiabank cut its Verizon price target from $51.50 to $50 on the day of the selloff while keeping a Sector Outperform rating; the note itself was not published.
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