SpaceX is planning to establish a terrestrial mobile network aiming to compete with major US carriers like T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon. This announcement was made during an earnings call by SpaceX executives, including CEO Elon Musk and President Gwynne Shotwell. The company intends to leverage spectrum acquired from EchoStar to enhance its existing Starlink Mobile service, which is designed to fill cellular dead zones. Shotwell indicated that the service will dramatically improve with new technology and plans to use smaller, efficient base stations integrated with Starlink dishes to provide better mobile coverage. SpaceX aims to capture part of the $600 billion US wireless market by offering superior service to current customers of existing carriers.

Notifications

Hamburger Navigation Button

Navigation Drawer

The VergeThe Verge logo.

closeClose

LightSystemDark

Comments Drawer

Notifications

Comments

Loading comments

Getting the conversation ready...

Science
Business
Tech

SpaceX is coming for T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon

‘I anticipate us to be able to acquire quite a few of their customers.’

byThomas Ricker

Aug 5, 2026, 2:50 AM EDT

Link
Share
Gift

STKB355_SPACE_X_IPO_B

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

Thomas Rickeris a deputy editor and Verge co-founder with a passion for human-centric cities, e-bikes, and life as a digital nomad. He’s been a tech journalist for 20 years.

SpaceX is preparing to build a terrestrial mobile network to “acquire quite a few” of the customers now subscribed to T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon. The message to compete head-to-head with the US carriers was delivered by SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell and CEO Elon Musk during the Q&A section of the company’s first earnings call.

“The spectrum that we purchased from EchoStar does have terrestrial components, so we definitely intend to build out the terrestrial component,” said Shotwell. “You will have not only the capacity from the satellites themselves, but you will have a buildout of the terrestrial, basically the hardware and systems necessary to make a true mobile service exactly what you want it to be.”

Add Verge on Google

Add Verge as a preferred source to see more of our reporting on Google.

Add us on Google

SpaceX already operates a direct-to-device service dubbed “Starlink Mobile.” It augments carrier networks — like T-Mobile, in the US — by providing limited messaging and data in cellular dead zones. The service will be “100 times better,” according to Shotwell, when it starts leveraging the bandwidth acquired from EchoStar and next-generation Starlink Mobile (V2) satellites that “will start flying next year.”

SpaceX only acquired 65 megahertz of spectrum from EchoStar which pales in comparison to the spectrum each of the Big 3 wireless carriers holds in the US. To build a nationwide network, it either needs to acquire more spectrum or get creative. To that end, Shotwell teased some “great and new ideas” for how it could build a ground-based network efficiently:

Let me give a little hint. And that is you could put a base station, a cellular base station on the gear that holds a Starlink broadband dish. So you can have kind of these little femtocells around the country, and you deploy that as you need it.

At which point Elon Musk chimed in:

Yeah, that point is probably worth just a few more words, because this is quite an important point. Instead of having to deploy these very expensive and difficult to locate, large cellular base stations, we feel reasonably confident that we can deploy a large number of small stations. Essentially, they’re really just Starlink dishes that also provide connectivity in the mobile spectrum bands, and have them be all over the place.

The Starlink antennas are located on the roofs of houses and businesses, so they’ve got sort of a clear view for providing connectivity directly to cellphones on the ground. Providing connectivity, that is, we think, probably better and higher bandwidth than what is currently available from cellular providers. This is an important point.”

SpaceX’s larger ambitions had been rumored during the run-up to its IPO, with Shotwell telling investors of plans to sell mobile contracts directly to individuals in the US.

The US wireless market — dominated by AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon — is estimated to be worth around $600 billion annually, according to Shotwell, and SpaceX is coming for its slice of the pie. “I anticipate us to be able to acquire quite a few of their customers because I think our service will be better,” she said.

Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.

Thomas Ricker
AT&T
Business
Mobile
Science
Space
SpaceX
T-Mobile
Tech
Verizon

Most Popular

The Verge Daily

A free daily digest of the news that matters most.

Email (required)

By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Advertiser Content From\ \ Sponsor Logo \ \ This is the title for the native ad\ \ Sponsor thumbnail