The announcement of Elon Musk’s SpaceX’s purchase of wireless spectrum worth $17 billion has raised concerns in the American telecom market about the possibility of the tech billionaire launching his own mobile operator.
The announcement of Elon Musk’s SpaceX’s purchase of wireless spectrum worth $17 billion has raised concerns in the American telecom market about the possibility of the tech billionaire launching his own mobile operator.
«Everyone is wondering if this is the final decision to become a mobile operator,» said Kim Burke, a representative of the consulting company Quilty Space, in a comment to The Washington Post.
The new bandwidth is reportedly intended for use by the Starlink satellite service.
Analysts have already said that Starlink’s entry into the sector is likely to put pressure on major US mobile carriers to provide better service to rural customers in remote locations, either through collaboration with Starlink or through competing technology.
Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, this week called SpaceX’s spectrum purchase «a potentially revolutionary move,» and Tom Stroup, president of the Satellite Industry Association, said it was «one of the most important announcements» made to date for satellite cellular communications.
The spectrum seller was EchoStar, which last month also agreed to sell spectrum to AT&T for $23 billion in a separate deal.
Starlink claims that their upcoming mobile service will provide «full-fledged 5G cellular connectivity that is comparable in experience to terrestrial LTE service» in «most environments.»
At the same time, many industry experts are more cautious, saying that Starlink is unlikely to be able to compete with major carriers like Verizon or AT&T in densely populated urban areas anytime soon due to limited spectrum, and will likely remain a supplement to traditional mobile plans.
Meanwhile, Musk has not ruled out the possibility of becoming a direct competitor to American mobile carriers in the future. When asked on the «All-In» podcast whether he could one day acquire a company like Verizon, he said it was «not out of the question.»
As dev.ua wrote, the recent global Starlink outage exposed the system’s vulnerability.
In addition, SpaceX has introduced a paid «pause» for Starlink: now standby mode costs $5 per month.
