Elon Musk has publicly rejected Verizon’s estimate of how long it will take SpaceX to build a US mobile network, saying Starlink Mobile will be operational in two or three years rather than four to six. The exchange followed remarks by Verizon chief executive Dan Schulman on the carrier’s earnings call on 26 October 2026, reported by Yahoo Finance and Wccftech.
Key facts
- Schulman said a full build-out would take a minimum of four to six years and cost between $300 billion and half a trillion dollars over the next seven or eight years, according to Yahoo Finance.
- Musk responded in a post: “Will take 2 or 3 years,” Yahoo Finance reported.
- Schulman said the result would make SpaceX the sixth, not the fourth, competitor in the US market, because Verizon also powers the MVNOs Spectrum Mobile and Xfinity Mobile.
- SpaceX plans to switch the service on in early 2028, according to PCMag’s report carried by Yahoo Finance.
- Analysts at TD Cowen estimated a nationwide ground network would cost more than $80bn and take many years, Reuters reported, as cited by The Next Web.
Why it matters
The disagreement is about whether satellite internet can become a mainstream phone service or stays a rural product. Schulman’s argument, per Yahoo Finance, is that SpaceX has no realistic shortcut: it must build the same towers, backhaul and back-office systems as an incumbent, and ends up with the same cost structure.
Musk’s two-to-three-year figure implies the opposite — that satellites plus leased ground sites compress the work. On SpaceX’s quarterly earnings call, Musk said Starlink connectivity would ultimately generate several hundred billion dollars of revenue a year, Yahoo Finance reported.
Verizon’s case against a satellite carrier
Schulman said he assumes SpaceX will do everything it says it will do and execute flawlessly, and that assuming otherwise makes no sense, according to Wccftech. His objection is physics and economics rather than competence.
Without a terrestrial network, he said, SpaceX’s addressable market for broadband is relatively small and concentrated in very rural areas. In suburban and urban areas, where about 98% of Verizon’s revenues sit, he claimed Verizon is between 100 and 1,000 times more efficient than a satellite operator, Wccftech reported.
He put the build at 65,000 to 80,000 macro sites plus backhaul, radio access network equipment and a large amount of spectrum. Schulman also ruled out leasing Verizon’s ground network to any satellite provider, telling analysts there are no backdoors to its MVNO agreements and he sees no benefit in such a deal, per Yahoo Finance. He vowed to compete “ferociously” once Starlink Mobile exists, and said Verizon would be two to three generations ahead of its current network in four to five years, with gig-plus millimetre-wave coverage and early 6G experiments.
The ground network SpaceX is chasing
Bloomberg’s Kelcee Griffis reported on 22 October that SpaceX wants access to at least 80,000 US cell sites and is in talks with at least one large tower owner, Crown Castle, in deals that could be worth billions. The Next Web said it had not independently verified the report; Crown Castle’s chief executive would only say the company is talking to all parties.
For scale, The Next Web cited Reuters and the Wireless Infrastructure Association: the US had 158,500 purpose-built cell towers last year, with Crown Castle running about 40,000, American Tower about 42,000 and Vertical Bridge about 18,000. A March report put T-Mobile at 82,000 towers, AT&T at 75,000 and Verizon at 65,000.
Not everyone believes the figure. Ken Schmidt of Steel In The Air, which tracks cell lease negotiations, said even the most optimistic case needs fewer sites than each big carrier — about 75,000 — and suggested the number looks like pressure to force an MVNO deal. Research firm MoffettNathanson noted that SpaceX’s plan to relay mobile signals from customers’ home Starlink equipment puts those sites where subscribers live, not necessarily where coverage is needed. SpaceX’s reported hunt for 80,000 cell sites sent Crown Castle shares up as much as 10% in late trading, while AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile fell between 4.2% and 5%, Reuters reported.
Spectrum and satellites
On 9 October SpaceX said it would acquire up to 14 megahertz of paired 800MHz spectrum from infrastructure investor Grain Management, subject to regulatory approval, Billionaires Africa reported. SpaceX called it prime low-band spectrum addressing a key remaining technical gap; Musk called it a very big deal. Billionaires Africa said low-band signals travel far and penetrate buildings, and that almost none is left to buy. Verizon fell nearly 6% and AT&T and T-Mobile each moved more than 6%.
Wccftech reported that before the deal SpaceX’s terrestrial holdings were roughly 15MHz of unpaired AWS-3, about 40MHz of AWS-4 and about 10MHz of H-Block spectrum, with space-based 2GHz mid-band spectrum forming the cellular backbone. The Federal Communications Commission has approved an additional 15,000 next-generation satellites able to connect directly to phones, on top of roughly 11,000 already in orbit, and Starship delivered the first 26 operational V3 satellites on 28 September, according to Billionaires Africa. SpaceX says V3 carries ten times the downlink capacity of the current generation.
Billionaires Africa also noted Musk has spent weeks fighting for Starlink’s entry into India and that South Africa’s ownership rules have kept the company out of that market.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will the phone in my pocket work with Starlink Mobile?
Not fully yet. Wccftech reports that of SpaceX’s terrestrial holdings, only its small slice of AWS-3 spectrum is actively supported by most existing cellphones, with more handsets expected to add support for the rest in 2027 and 2028. PCMag, carried by Yahoo Finance, adds that SpaceX still has to push the smartphone industry to adopt compatible modem chips before the initial commercial service.
Does Starlink Mobile already have a US carrier partner?
Yes. The Next Web reports that T-Mobile, one of the three big US carriers, is the exclusive US provider of the first Starlink Mobile service. Billionaires Africa notes Starlink’s direct-to-cell service has so far run on T-Mobile’s spectrum under that partnership.
Why does DISH’s abandoned network keep coming up?
Crown Castle chief executive Chris Hillabrant told analysts on 21 October that DISH installed equipment on more than 12,000 Crown Castle sites before abandoning its network, and that some of the kit is still on the towers. Those sites have already cleared zoning and permitting, which he called the “industry cheat code” for a newcomer wanting to move fast, according to The Next Web.
Is Starlink Mobile planned for Africa?
The sources describe Starlink Mobile only as a US carrier plan, with no African launch, pricing or timeline announced. On SpaceX’s quarterly earnings call, Musk said the company would build out terrestrial networks anywhere SpaceX and Starlink are allowed to operate, per The Next Web. Billionaires Africa reports SpaceX has been kept out of South Africa by ownership rules.
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