SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told IPO roadshow investors on June 26, 2026 that the company plans to challenge AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile directly with a retail Starlink mobile service.

This plan is based on concrete infrastructure; namely, the FCC approved SpaceX's plans to purchase 65 MHz of mid-band, nationwide exclusive spectrum from EchoStar in May 2026 for around $17 billion.

SpaceX will be signing customers up, billing them directly, and having their own brand in an industry that they access through another company at the moment. At present, SpaceX provides T-Mobile with satellite services through its T-Satellite service.

All three major US carriers have publicly declined to offer SpaceX an MVNO deal, with AT&T and T-Mobile CEOs saying so explicitly during Q1 2026 earnings calls. Starlink filed trademarks including Starlink Mobile and Powered by Starlink last year.

SpaceX is looking into a number of avenues: constructing its own terrestrial wireless network to augment the satellites, operating itself as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) via current systems, or buying an already established network provider.

According to David Barden from New Street Research, the competitive challenge is structurally significant because the possibility of Starlink competing in the consumer space on its own is a powerful bargaining tool no matter whether it ever realises itself.

SpaceX is applying for FCC clearance to launch as many as 15,000 satellites of the second generation that will be capable of completely harnessing the EchoStar spectrum and having 20 times the throughput capacity of the first-generation satellites. Starlink has 10.3 million subscribers in over 160 countries as of March 31, 2026, making up $11.4 billion of SpaceX's $18.7 billion revenues in 2025.