CEOs of the three major carriers respond to SpaceX building its own mobile network: no room for MVNOs, and costs would be enormous
T-Mobile Chief Executive Officer Srini Gopalan said at the company’s third-quarter earnings call on October 28 that he saw no room for cooperation with SpaceX through an MVNO. He said that, except in some remote rural areas, satellite broadband is a degraded version of fixed wireless access (FWA) and faces additional constraints such as beam size; two-thirds of T-Mobile’s home broadband users are in major cities.
Verizon Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman said at a previous earnings call that there is no benefit at all in providing network leasing to satellite companies. He estimated that if SpaceX were to build its own nationwide mobile network, it would need 65,000 to 80,000 macro base stations, take at least four to six years, and cost about $300 billion to $500 billion (over a seven- to eight-year period), ultimately possibly resulting in a network and cost structure similar to those of existing carriers.
AT&T Chief Executive Officer John Stankey said at an earnings call about a week ago that one should not overreact to the slice of low-band spectrum SpaceX purchased, about 14 MHz of paired 800 MHz spectrum. He pointed out that AT&T operates six to eight low-band carriers in typical urban areas, and that its spectrum deployment covers indoor systems, high-rise buildings, hospitals and stadiums.
In the background, SpaceX recently agreed to acquire a nationwide 800 MHz low-band spectrum portfolio from Grain Management and said it would combine satellite and terrestrial networks to push Starlink Mobile to become a major mobile operator. Bloomberg and others reported that SpaceX is seeking access to at least 80,000 U.S. base station sites.
Original sources:
Title: T-Mobile CEO rules out letting SpaceX's Starlink Mobile run on its network Publisher: GSMArena and others (paraphrasing the earnings call) Date: 2026-10-29 URL: https://www.gsmarena.com/tmobile_ceo_rules_out_letting_spacex_run_on_its_network-news-75272.php Nature of source: media report (paraphrasing the call) Verification status: this time actually read by multiple media cross-reports (2026-10-30) Supported content: Gopalan’s statements about no room for MVNOs, satellite as a degraded version of FWA, and two-thirds of users being in major cities
Title: Verizon CEO says SpaceX would need $500B to compete in US wireless Publisher: The Next Web and others Date: 2026-10-26 URL: https://thenextweb.com/news/verizon-schulman-spacex-500b-wireless-network Nature of source: media report (paraphrasing the call) Verification status: this time actually read by multiple media cross-reports (2026-10-30) Supported content: Schulman’s estimates of no benefit from MVNOs, 65,000-80,000 base stations, four to six years, and $300 billion to $500 billion
Title: AT&T CEO John Stankey not getting twisted over SpaceX’s spectrum salvo Publisher: SDxCentral and others Date: 2026-10-21 URL: https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/att-ceo-john-stankey-not-getting-twisted-over-spacexs-spectrum-salvo/ Nature of source: media report (paraphrasing the call) Verification status: this time actually read by multiple media cross-reports (2026-10-30) Supported content: Stankey’s remarks about not overreacting to a slice of low-band spectrum and the comparison of AT&T’s spectrum scale
ABAB AI Insight
The three major carriers all view satellite as complementary rather than a substitute. T-Mobile already has a T-Satellite partnership with SpaceX (a supplement for remote coverage), but clearly distinguishes it from an MVNO, which would allow SpaceX to sell its own plans on T-Mobile’s terrestrial network. Gopalan stressed that an MVNO must bring a new market, channel, or capability, and that satellite does not meet that condition in the urban home broadband use case.
Verizon’s estimate focuses on the barriers to building a terrestrial network: the number of macro base stations, backhaul, RAN equipment, spectrum, and retail customer support systems. Schulman also said he was assuming SpaceX could execute perfectly, but still believed that in cities and suburbs, which account for about 98% of its revenue, satellite is far less efficient than a terrestrial network. AT&T, meanwhile, downplayed the impact of acquiring a single band of spectrum from the perspective of spectrum holdings and indoor coverage.
SpaceX’s path is a hybrid model: satellite (direct-to-device plus broadband) + terrestrial spectrum and base stations. Buying the 800 MHz low-band spectrum is intended to improve indoor penetration and to seek base station sites. After existing carriers rejected an MVNO, building its own network becomes the main option, but it would still require FCC approval of the spectrum transaction and face years of construction and capital expenditures.
This event shows that acquiring low-band spectrum lowers some technical barriers, but a nationwide mobile network still depends on extensive terrestrial infrastructure and operating systems. The carriers’ positions consistently point to the same conclusion: satellite is better suited to edge supplementation, while urban primary coverage and home broadband still rely mainly on terrestrial networks.
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Satellite can serve as a supplement in remote areas, but urban home broadband use cases are constrained by beam and capacity limits.
After an MVNO is rejected, building a nationwide network requires tens of thousands of base stations and investment on the scale of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Acquiring a single band of low-band spectrum does not change existing carriers’ advantages in indoor and urban spectrum deployment.