Verizon chief executive Dan Schulman told analysts on Monday that SpaceX would need at least four to six years and between $300 billion and $500 billion to turn Starlink Mobile into a full US carrier. He made the estimate on the third-quarter earnings call at Verizon, the US wireless operator, on 26 October, according to Tesla North, days after reports that SpaceX was seeking access to 80,000 US cell sites to give its satellite phone service a network on the ground.
Key facts
- Schulman said on the call that the spending would run over the next seven or eight years, Tesla North reports.
- He said a terrestrial SpaceX network would need 65,000 to 80,000 macro sites, plus backhaul, radio equipment and “a tremendous amount of spectrum.”
- Retail stores, customer service and back-office systems would come on top of that, he said.
- Elon Musk, who runs SpaceX, put the buildout at two or three years in a post on X the same day — roughly half Verizon’s minimum.
- Schulman said Starlink would end up “the sixth, not the fourth” competitor in the US market.
Why it matters
The dispute is about ground infrastructure, not satellites. Schulman’s case, as reported by Tesla North, is that satellites alone cannot compete in the suburban and urban areas that he said account for about 98% of Verizon’s revenue, where he claimed the carrier is “somewhere between 100 to 1,000 times more efficient.” That is Schulman’s own characterisation, offered on his company’s earnings call without published workings, and the span between its two ends is an order of magnitude wide — it should be read as an argument, not a measurement.
What the call does supply is a price tag, from the company being targeted, for moving Starlink Mobile from filling coverage gaps to replacing a mobile operator.
What Verizon says a rival network requires
Beyond the site count and the spectrum, Schulman’s framing was that scale cannot be bought quickly: there is “no magic wand” for building a network, Tesla North reports him saying.
On competition, he said two rivals already offer free wireless service, which is why he placed Starlink sixth rather than fourth. He did not name those rivals, according to the report.
SpaceX’s answer
SpaceX’s own third-quarter call came six days earlier, on 20 October. Musk said then that he sees a clear path to several hundred billion dollars a year in connectivity revenue, Tesla North reports, and followed up on X with a message aimed at the wireless industry.
Cellular veterans, he wrote, “look at the chess board of existing pieces and don’t see a solution,” while SpaceX is developing entirely new pieces that change the strategic landscape. In the same series of posts on X, per Tesla North, Musk said SpaceX should hold a longer presentation setting out its Starlink connectivity plan for investors.
The pieces assembled this month
Several of those moves are already on the public record. In October, per Tesla North, SpaceX agreed to buy up to 14 MHz of paired 800 MHz spectrum, obtained an authorisation from the Federal Communications Commission — the US telecoms regulator — covering 15,000 next-generation direct-to-cell satellites, and outlined plans for Starlink towers.
AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, the three largest US carriers, have been lobbying the FCC over satellite-to-phone rules, pressing the agency to keep key 5G bands out of them, the report says.
Outside the US, partners rather than rivals
The confrontational tone is specific to the American market. Tesla North reports that Starlink Mobile is scaling elsewhere through carrier partners: the service went live across Brazil on Monday through Vivo, the Brazilian mobile operator, putting it in front of 50 million customers.
Starlink also said last week that it has connected more than 11 million people on the networks of VEON, the telecoms group whose operations include Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Bangladesh.
No African market is named in the report, and Schulman’s estimate applies to building a carrier in the United States. For readers in Zimbabwe and elsewhere on the continent, the relevant detail is the model: where Starlink Mobile has launched commercially so far, it has done so on an existing operator’s licence and customer base rather than as a standalone carrier.
What is still unknown
Neither side has published a reconciled set of numbers. Verizon has costed and timetabled a network SpaceX has not described in detail; SpaceX has given a timeline and a revenue ambition without a capital figure. The underlying material is Verizon’s 26 October earnings call, SpaceX’s 20 October call and Musk’s posts on X, all read here through Tesla North’s account, which flags that gap directly. The two timelines — four to six years against two to three — remain in open conflict.
Frequently Asked Questions
Would Verizon let Starlink use its own network?
No. Tesla North reports that Schulman ruled out offering any satellite provider an MVNO deal on Verizon’s network, which would have let a rival resell Verizon coverage. He did leave the door open to working with satellite companies on coverage in remote areas.
Has SpaceX published its own cost estimate for a US ground network?
No. The cost range in this story is an incumbent’s estimate of a rival’s buildout, delivered on Verizon’s own earnings call. Tesla North reports that SpaceX has never put a public capital figure on a US ground network.
Where would Starlink’s own cell towers be built?
According to Tesla North, SpaceX this month outlined plans for Starlink towers built on the real estate of existing Starlink installations. That is separate from the reported effort to get access to 80,000 US cell sites already in use.
Does Verizon’s CEO think SpaceX will fail?
Not exactly. Tesla North quotes Schulman saying he works on the assumption that SpaceX will do everything it says it will do and will execute flawlessly. His argument is about cost, time and efficiency rather than SpaceX’s competence.
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