SpaceX Enters US Mobile Market After Spectrum Purchase
SpaceX has agreed to buy a nationwide low-band spectrum portfolio in the 800 MHz range from investment firm Grain Management. The deal will allow it to develop Starlink Mobile and compete directly with traditional US mobile carriers.
Yulduz Salimov1 min read
SpaceX has agreed to buy a nationwide low-band spectrum portfolio in the 800 MHz range from investment firm Grain Management. The deal will allow the company to develop Starlink Mobile and compete directly with traditional US mobile carriers.
Financial terms of the deal were not officially disclosed. According to The Wall Street Journal, SpaceX will pay about $8 billion in cash.
Low-band signals travel long distances and penetrate walls and tree cover better. SpaceX plans to combine them with its existing 2 GHz Starlink Mobile band to provide connectivity directly from satellites to ordinary smartphones.
The deal still requires approval from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Following the news, shares of T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T fell by about 6% in extended trading.
Verizon representative Rich Young said that having available spectrum alone does not guarantee SpaceX the ability to build a full-fledged mobile network.
The same week, the FCC authorized SpaceX to deploy a constellation of 15,000 next-generation Starlink Mobile satellites. They will be optimized to operate in the 2 GHz band and connect with standard mobile phones.
Starlink Context
SpaceX has been developing Starlink since 2019. In spring 2026, the service had about 10.3 million subscribers across 164 countries, and Starlink accounted for nearly 70% of the company's quarterly revenue. At that time, about 10,500 active satellites of this constellation were in orbit.
In June, SpaceX warned the EU about the risk of interference for satellite direct-to-smartphone services due to planned restrictions on access to radio spectrum.
Source: vedomosti.ru
