SpaceX is pursuing agreements for a minimum of 80,000 cell sites across the United States as it pushes ahead with plans to build a fourth nationwide wireless carrier, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, 22 October. Bloomberg’s report is paywalled; the figures and quotes attributed to it below come from a Stocktwits summary, so this account is secondhand throughout. On that account, shares of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile — the three dominant US mobile operators — moved 4% to 5% lower in extended trading on the competitive implications.
Key facts
- Bloomberg, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, said SpaceX is in discussions with at least one major cellular infrastructure company, that Crown Castle was approached, and that the value of the deals could reach into the billions.
- The agreements would strengthen SpaceX’s effort to establish itself as a standalone wireless competitor to the existing dominant providers.
- Neither SpaceX nor Crown Castle is quoted confirming a deal, and no company statement or regulatory filing about tower agreements has been published.
Why it matters
Starlink’s satellite broadband already reaches customers directly. A terrestrial tower network is a different business: competing with national mobile operators on their own ground, in their own market, for ordinary phone service.
What 80,000 sites would buy
Coverage where satellites are weakest. Tim Farrar of TMF Associates told CNBC the spectrum SpaceX has agreed to buy is still a very limited amount, and that the company would have to put towers on the ground to get reliable coverage inside buildings in urban areas. A number as large as 80,000 implies a full national footprint rather than trials in a few metros, and renting space on structures that already stand skips the site acquisition, zoning and construction that would otherwise run for years.
The harder constraints are financial and regulatory. Leases convert a buildout into a recurring obligation — one Bloomberg’s sources size in the billions — that SpaceX would carry whatever pace Starlink Mobile signs up customers at. And the sites are only worth renting if the licences arrive: the 800 MHz purchase is subject to FCC approval, and spectrum transfers of this kind are filed with the regulator and put out for public comment before they clear, which is where the first primary-source paperwork on the plan will appear.
How the market reacted
| Stock | Move after the Bloomberg report (Stocktwits) |
|---|---|
| AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile | Down 4% to 5% in extended trading |
| Crown Castle | Up 9% |
| American Tower | Up 5% |
| SpaceX (SPCX) | Up 1.4% after hours, after closing Thursday down 10% at about $145 |
The carriers fell; the companies that would collect the rent rose.
Who the landlords would be
Stocktwits named Crown Castle, American Tower and Vertical Bridge as the largest US owners of cellular towers, with Crown Castle the one Bloomberg’s sources said was approached. They are leasing businesses rather than carriers, renting space on structures to whoever wants to mount radios on them — which is why the same report reads as revenue to them and as a threat to the incumbents.
Elon Musk addressed the terrestrial side on the company’s earnings call this week. “We will be building out our terrestrial networks so there’s broad-based connectivity anywhere that SpaceX and Starlink are allowed to operate,” he said, in remarks reported by Stocktwits.
The spectrum deal came first
Two weeks earlier, on Thursday 8 October, SpaceX announced an agreement to buy a nationwide spectrum portfolio from Grain Management, a firm that specialises in digital infrastructure, CNBC reported. SpaceX described it as a license portfolio of up to 14 megahertz of paired spectrum in the 800 MHz band, and said the deal is subject to approval by the Federal Communications Commission, the US telecoms regulator.
In its own statement — the one direct SpaceX document behind any of this — the company said the newly bought low-band spectrum in the 800 MHz band addresses one of the key remaining technical gaps on the path to Starlink Mobile becoming a major mobile carrier in the US. Musk called it a “very big deal” in a post on X, according to CNBC. Carrier shares fell on that news too, and Stocktwits noted SpaceX has also received FCC clearance to launch 15,000 satellites built to reach phones directly.
The incumbents have closed ranks
CNBC reported that in the week before the spectrum announcement, T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon formed a joint venture — described as focused on expanding coverage in underserved areas — using satellite and direct-to-device services, and that Starlink was notably absent from it. T-Mobile had also previously removed mention of Starlink from its T-Satellite promotions, CNBC said. CNBC’s assessment was that SpaceX appears determined to take on the US telecoms giants and deliver its own services without them.
Not everyone is sold
Retail sentiment around SPCX on Stocktwits was described as ‘extremely bullish’, with message volume rising from ‘high’ to ‘extremely high’ over 24 hours. But Stocktwits also quoted a user who dismissed the selloff in carrier stocks, arguing that SpaceX will take time to build terrestrial infrastructure and pointing to the company’s reliance on what the user called the AI bubble.
SpaceX went public in June in what CNBC called a record IPO and is now valued at over $2 trillion. Thursday’s close left the stock above the $135 IPO price but below all-time highs near $226, on the Stocktwits figures.
What the sources do not answer
There is no launch date. CNBC said SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for further information, including when its new services may come online if regulators approve, and that the added spectrum would help SpaceX combine satellite and ground-based coverage once it builds out a network of towers.
The reported talks also concern sites in the United States only. Neither source describes plans, pricing or timing for a Starlink Mobile carrier service in Africa or any other region, so readers outside the US have nothing concrete to go on from this story.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Starlink subscribers are there, and why do the published figures differ?
CNBC, citing SpaceX’s second-quarter report, said Starlink was available in 205 countries with 12 million subscribers as of June 30, and that the network has over 11,000 satellites in orbit. Deutsche Bank analysts estimated the global base reached 13.5 million at the end of September, including 4.1 million in the United States. The two numbers are three months apart and come from different kinds of source — one is company-reported, the other a bank’s estimate — so the gap reads as a quarter of growth rather than a contradiction.
What is the FCC voting on that could affect Starlink Mobile?
CNBC reported the FCC said it would vote on a proposal to auction 25 megahertz of what it called prime spectrum to support satellite-to-smartphone services. CNBC also said a vote was set for October 29 on taking public comment on making an additional 482 MHz available for supplemental coverage from space and on modernising FCC rules for direct-to-device services in licensed spectrum.
What would confirm the 80,000-site report?
Three things would move it from reporting to record: a statement from SpaceX or a tower owner naming the agreements, a disclosure in Crown Castle’s results or securities filings if a lease commitment of that size is signed, and the FCC’s public file on the 800 MHz licence assignment, which has to be filed and put out for comment before it clears. None of those existed at the time of publication; CNBC said SpaceX did not respond to its questions about the new services.
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