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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.”
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 with how it deploys ground infrastructure. 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,” said Shotwell.
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