# One Network, Ground and Space: The SpaceX Mobile Network > SpaceX already reaches phones on five continents from orbit. Its talks for 80,000 U.S. cell sites are the first sign it wants a ground network too. Here is how the pieces fit and what still has to be proven. Source: https://savrn.com/blog/spacex-mobile-network-ground-and-space Author: Chad Everett Harris Published: 2026-10-23 --- The SpaceX mobile network took a big step toward the ground on October 22, 2026, when Bloomberg reported that SpaceX is in talks to secure access to at least 80,000 U.S. cell sites 1. Reuters relayed the story and named Crown Castle as one of the companies involved 2. However, SpaceX has not commented, and no agreement has been announced.
160+
countries and territories with Starlink service, with more than 12 million customers
Starlink via Mezha, June 2026
15,000
new direct-to-device satellites the FCC authorized on October 6, 2026
Light Reading, October 2026
80,000
U.S. cell sites SpaceX is reportedly seeking; talks, not signed deals
Bloomberg via Reuters, October 22, 2026
Most coverage read this as a U.S. telecom story. Instead, I read it as the last piece of a global one. SpaceX already sells satellite broadband in more than 160 countries and territories 3. In addition, its satellites talk to ordinary phones through carrier partners on five continents. In Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Bangladesh alone, VEON says the service connected more than 11 million people in its first year 4. Then, in October, SpaceX signed for nationwide U.S. low-band spectrum and won FCC authority for a 15,000-satellite mobile constellation 5, 6. However, what SpaceX has never had is a dense ground network of its own. The tower talks are the first sign it intends to build one, and it is starting in its largest, richest market. In fact, every mobile carrier on Earth today is a ground network that rents some sky. By contrast, SpaceX would be the first built the other way around: one sky network over the whole planet, plus owned spectrum and rented ground where demand is dense. If it works, a customer gets one service that covers the places towers reach and the places they never will. Therefore, that is the case for calling it the most complete communications service in the world. The rest of this article is about what has to be true for that case to hold. ## The numbers in one place

Table 1 Key figures as of 23 October 2026, with the source for each

Starlink customers worldwide
12M+
More than 160 countries and territories, June 2026 3
Working Starlink satellites
11,143
September 30, 2026 15
Direct-to-cell satellites in service
650+
The fleet behind T-Mobile's T-Satellite 7
People reached in three VEON markets
11M+
Unique customers who connected without cell signal, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh 4
Airtel Africa agreement
14 markets
174 million customers; launch in 2026 subject to approvals 13
People with no mobile broadband
~300M (4%)
Worldwide in 2025; 10% in Sub-Saharan Africa 16
Mobile constellation authorized
15,000
326 to 335 km; build-out deadline October 2035 6
U.S. cell sites sought
80,000+
In negotiation as of October 22, 2026 1
U.S. towers and macro sites
158,500 / 254,850
Year-end 2025 22
Grain 800 MHz spectrum (U.S.)
14 MHz paired
Signed October 8, 2026; FCC approval pending 5
EchoStar AWS-4 and H-Block deal
$17B
Cash plus SpaceX stock; closing targeted November 30, 2027 20
Full U.S. ground build cost
$80B+
TD Cowen estimate 2
## The footprint that already exists Before talking about towers, it helps to see how far satellite-to-phone service has already spread. For example, the figure below plots every carrier this article's sources name as a Starlink direct-to-cell partner.
Two globes marking Starlink phone partners in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania by launch status
Figure 1. Starlink direct-to-cell carrier partners named in this article's sources. Filled copper dots are confirmed launches with dates, rings are named partners whose launch status I could not confirm from a primary source, and blue is signed or in testing.

Table 2 Starlink direct-to-cell carrier partners by status

T-Mobile, United States
Launched
Commercial July 2025; app data from October 1, 2025 7
One NZ, New Zealand
Launched
Live per Starlink, February 2025 8
Kyivstar, Ukraine
Launched
November 24, 2025, free for about 15.5 million 4G smartphone users 4, 9
Beeline, Kazakhstan
Launched
September 29, 2026 4
Banglalink, Bangladesh
Launched
October 9, 2026, to 20 million customers 4
Rogers, Canada
Named partner
Named in Reuters coverage of the VEON deal 10
Optus and Telstra, Australia; KDDI, Japan; Salt, Switzerland; Entel, Chile and Peru
Named partners
Listed as partners; launch dates not confirmed from a primary source 11
MasOrange, Spain
Named partner
Added in early 2026 12
Airtel Africa, 14 markets
Signed
December 18, 2025; 174 million customers; 2026 launch subject to approvals 13
Airtel Uganda
Testing
Trials began in May 2026 12
Two things stand out. First is speed. The VEON markets went from signing in November 2025 to service in three countries within eleven months 4, 10. Second is reach. Specifically, the VEON agreement covers more than 150 million potential customers, and the Airtel agreement covers 174 million more across 14 African markets 10, 13. Admittedly, those are addressable bases, not users. Still, they show how quickly a satellite layer can sit on top of existing carriers without anything new on the ground. Meanwhile, the broadband business behind it keeps growing too. In addition, Starlink reported 9 million active customers in 155 countries in December 2025, 10 million in February 2026, and more than 12 million in June 2026 3, 14. Similarly, a public satellite catalog counted 11,143 working Starlink satellites on September 30, 2026 15.
Bar chart of Starlink active customers rising from 9 million in December 2025 to 12 million in June 2026
Figure 2. Starlink active customers worldwide, with countries and territories served.
## Why "most complete" is the right test Coverage maps measure where a signal exists. Customers, however, measure whether the phone works where they happen to be. As a result, those two things diverge in four places. The first is indoors. Most mobile traffic is used inside buildings, and higher frequencies lose strength through walls. Because of that, low-band spectrum below 1 GHz is so valuable to every carrier. The second is the long tail of geography: ranch roads, forests, open water, mountain passes and deserts. However, a tower network stops being economic long before it reaches all of that. The third is the moment the ground network fails, whether from a hurricane, a wildfire, a fiber cut or a war. Finally, the fourth is borders, because a carrier's network ends where its license ends. For context, the global numbers show how big the gap still is. According to the GSMA, about 300 million people, 4% of the world, live where there is no mobile broadband at all, and in Sub-Saharan Africa the gap is 10% 16. Moreover, coverage grew by only about 40 million people in 2024. At that pace, therefore, towers alone take years to close it.
Bar chart comparing 0.3 billion people without mobile broadband coverage to 3.1 billion covered but not using it
Figure 3. The coverage gap and the usage gap, from the GSMA's 2025 report.
In fact, the usage gap of 3.1 billion people is ten times bigger than the coverage gap, and satellites do not fix affordability or digital skills 16. Instead, what a satellite layer can fix is the coverage gap and the failure gap. Today, no carrier anywhere solves all four problems with assets it owns. SpaceX, however, is trying to.
Copper smartphone before a blueprint panorama of a city, suburb tower, farms, mountains and coast linked to satellites
Figure 4. The design goal: one subscriber and one number from a downtown office to a coastline.
## Two operating models: partner abroad, carrier at home Read the filings together and a clear pattern appears. To be clear, this is my reading, not a SpaceX statement. Outside the United States, SpaceX sells satellite coverage to the local carrier, which keeps the customer, the brand and the license. Accordingly, the FCC grant covers mobile satellite and direct-to-cell service outside the U.S. 6. That model scales fast because it needs no towers, no retail stores and no local spectrum auctions. Inside the United States, by contrast, SpaceX is buying its own spectrum, seeking its own ground sites, and holds an FCC waiver to offer satellite wireless service without a carrier's spectrum lease 6. In other words, that is the shape of a fourth national carrier. In fact, the split makes sense. Licensing a national mobile network in 160 countries would take decades, while selling one sky layer to hundreds of carriers takes contracts. In the U.S., one country with one regulator and some of the highest-spending mobile customers in the world, SpaceX can afford to own the whole stack. As a result, the U.S. becomes the proof that a hybrid carrier works, and every partner abroad becomes a buyer of the satellite half of it. However, there is a tension here worth naming. T-Mobile is both SpaceX's launch partner and the carrier most exposed to a SpaceX service at home. Nothing in the reporting says the partnership has ended 7. Even so, partners abroad will watch how that relationship holds. ## The six layers of the hybrid network The framework below is my reading of public filings and announcements. In particular, it is not a disclosed SpaceX engineering design. Each layer has a different job, a different reach and a different status today.
Copper direct-to-cell satellite with a square antenna beaming to phones, ships and a truck on a blueprint globe
Figure 5. The global layer. One satellite antenna serves phones, ships and vehicles under its beam, wherever the local carrier and regulator allow it.
### Layer 1: very-low-orbit satellites that reach phones Today, more than 650 direct-to-cell satellites serve partners worldwide 7. In addition, the FCC authorized 15,000 more in nine shells between 326 and 335 km, low enough to cut latency, with a deadline of October 2035 6. Furthermore, deployment is expected to begin in 2027 and depends on Starship 17. SpaceX also says the next generation carries more than 100 times the bandwidth of the current one. However, that is a company claim, not measured customer throughput. ### Layer 2: the laser mesh between satellites Starlink's direct-to-cell satellites carry an onboard cellular modem and connect into the wider constellation over lasers, and the phone side works like a roaming relationship with the partner carrier 18. Consequently, traffic can cross oceans in orbit without touching another country's ground network. ### Layer 3: mid-band mobile satellite spectrum EchoStar's AWS-4 and H-Block licenses moved into a trust as the first step of a $17 billion deal 19. Specifically, the filings describe 50 MHz across specified bands plus up to 15 MHz of additional AWS spectrum in relevant areas. However, the final transfer to SpaceX is targeted for about November 30, 2027 20. ### Layer 4: low-band 800 MHz The Grain portfolio is up to 14 MHz of paired spectrum. Previously, Grain got it from T-Mobile in August 2026 and agreed on October 8 to sell all of it to SpaceX, subject to FCC approval 5, 21. This is the layer that reaches into buildings, and it is the reason towers suddenly matter. ### Layer 5: terrestrial macro sites This is the reported 80,000 sites, where concentrated demand gets served: cities, suburbs and highways 1. Because ground radios reuse the same spectrum many times across small areas, they carry far more traffic per square mile than a satellite beam can. ### Layer 6: small cells, indoor systems and Wi-Fi The U.S. already has 198,100 outdoor small cells and 830,350 indoor nodes 22. Similarly, Starlink's 12 million broadband customers could carry phone traffic over Wi-Fi at home and at work 3. Even so, nothing public shows how SpaceX plans to use either. ## Why 800 MHz turned towers into a priority Spectrum is described two ways, and the two get mixed up. "800 MHz" is where the spectrum sits on the dial, while "14 MHz paired" is how wide the holding is. Low frequencies travel far and go through walls, whereas width decides how much traffic a band can carry. The Grain deal gives SpaceX a low-band layer that reaches indoors, alongside the 2 GHz mid-band it is getting from EchoStar 21. Moreover, SpaceX said the purchase fills one of the key remaining technical gaps for Starlink Mobile 23. Admittedly, low-band spectrum is useful from orbit too. Its full value, though, comes from ground radios that reuse it cell after cell. For instance, a 14 MHz paired block broadcast from a satellite beam covers a huge area with one slice of capacity, while the same block on 80,000 towers is reused across 80,000 small areas. In short, that is the engineering reason the tower story followed the spectrum story by two weeks. Bernstein made the same point from the other side: buying spectrum does not commit SpaceX to building towers, but it keeps the tower option very much alive 23. For the EchoStar spectrum, there are at least five separate dates to keep apart: regulatory approval, transfer to the trust, operating rights, final closing, and commercial service. The filings show the first transfer step is done, but they do not show FCC approval of the full transfer 19, 20. Therefore, calling it a finished purchase hides real dependencies. ## How big is 80,000 sites, really
Copper lattice cell tower with antenna panels and a cabinet before a blueprint field of towers, homes and a highway
Figure 6. The dense layer. Existing towers owned by neutral landlords are where SpaceX would add its own radios in the U.S.

Table 3 80,000 sites against the U.S. base

Against 158,500 purpose-built towers
50.5%
Scale only; says nothing about population coverage or capacity 22
Against 254,850 macrocell sites
31.4%
A site can sit on a tower, rooftop or other structure 22
Against Crown Castle's ~40,000 towers
200%
Crown alone could cover at most half the target 2
Against Crown, American Tower and Vertical Bridge combined (~100,000)
80%
The deal likely needs more than one landlord 2
A cell site is a set of radios at a location, and several carriers can share one physical tower. Thus 80,000 sites does not mean 80,000 new towers. Instead, it most likely means SpaceX radios added to structures that already exist, which is faster and cheaper than new construction and is exactly what tower companies sell. Specifically, Crown Castle's chief executive said the company was talking with all parties when asked about satellite providers, and declined to name customers 2. That confirms engagement, although it is not a SpaceX contract. Firm leases, options to pick sites later, minimum commitments and a master agreement with site-by-site orders all create very different obligations. However, none of those terms are public. ## What it costs to deliver TD Cowen estimates a full U.S. ground network could cost more than $80 billion and take years 2. Bernstein's range runs from 30,000 to 120,000 sites and from $50 billion to $130 billion, depending on how far the build goes 24. In both cases, these are analyst estimates rather than a SpaceX budget. The recurring cost is the part most coverage skips, because site rent is paid every month for the life of the lease, before and after customers arrive. The figures below are assumptions I chose for illustration. In particular, they are not reported SpaceX lease terms or market quotes.

Table 4 Illustrative site rent across 80,000 active sites (SAVRN assumptions)

$1,000 per site per month
$0.96B a year
$9.6B over ten years, flat and undiscounted
$2,000 per site per month
$1.92B a year
$19.2B over ten years, flat and undiscounted
$3,000 per site per month
$2.88B a year
$28.8B over ten years, flat and undiscounted
Rent sits beside radios, antennas, installation, power, backhaul, maintenance, software, operations, insurance and customer acquisition. Furthermore, turning on 80,000 sites evenly takes about 2,222 activations a month over three years, 1,333 over five, or 952 over seven, and that assumes every site goes live. ### Worked example: how many customers pay the rent Take the middle case of $2,000 per site per month, or $1.92 billion a year. At $40 a month in average service revenue, each line brings in $480 a year. Therefore, covering site rent alone takes 4.0 million paying lines, before radios, power, backhaul, staff or marketing.
Bar chart of site rent at 80%, 40% and 20% of service revenue at 5, 10 and 20 million lines
Figure 7. Site rent as a share of service revenue. SAVRN assumptions, not a forecast: $2,000 per site per month across 80,000 sites and $40 per line per month.
Five million lines bring in $2.4 billion a year, 10 million bring in $4.8 billion, and 20 million bring in $9.6 billion. However, those figures leave out discounts, taxes, devices, churn and bad debt. The point is simple: customer density is the whole game. At 10 million lines, for example, each of 80,000 sites carries 125 paying customers. Additionally, this is where the global footprint matters. The satellite layer is paid for once and sold many times, to U.S. retail customers and to partner carriers in dozens of countries. Revenue from abroad does not pay U.S. tower rent directly; however, it spreads the cost of the constellation that every U.S. customer also uses. No U.S. carrier has that offset. ## Where SpaceX has an edge on delivery ### The global layer is already in orbit Satellite-to-phone service across many countries is the piece no ground carrier owns. SpaceX already runs it commercially with partners from the U.S. to Bangladesh 4, 7. Carriers rent that reach, whereas SpaceX owns it. ### It controls its own launch cost New constellation deployment depends on Starship 17. Since no other satellite operator launches on its own rockets at this volume, SpaceX can add capacity on its own schedule, and more than 11,000 working Starlink satellites are already up 15. ### It can rent the ground instead of building it The U.S. has 158,500 towers run by neutral landlords whose business is adding tenants 22. As a result, SpaceX needs signed leases, radios and crews rather than concrete. ### Partners abroad keep paying while the U.S. builds Meanwhile, each new partner adds revenue without new ground spending. For instance, the Airtel Africa deal alone covers 174 million customers 13. ### Resilience is built into the design When a tower loses power or fiber, a phone on a hybrid network can still reach the sky. Kyivstar's free launch in Ukraine during wartime is the clearest real case of why that matters 9. Even so, independent performance tests are still missing. ## What could stop it ### Capacity where people are A satellite beam is wide, while dense demand needs ground cells. Consequently, if the U.S. tower layer comes late or thin, the service is strongest where the fewest people live. ### Handoff between layers Moving a live session from a tower to a satellite and back, cleanly and securely, across millions of phones, is the least proven part of the design. ### Regulators in every country The Grain sale needs FCC approval, and the EchoStar deal closes in late 2027 5, 20. Abroad, each launch needs a local license; in fact, Airtel's 14-market rollout is subject to approval country by country 13. ### Partner trust and incumbent response Carriers abroad may hesitate to depend on a supplier that is becoming a carrier at home. Meanwhile, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile can cut prices, sign other satellite partners and bundle. Their shares fell between 4.2% and 5% on the report 2. ## What it means for towers, carriers and fiber Tower owners would gain a new national tenant, which lifts use of existing steel and brings installation and amendment work. However, the value depends on committed volume, rent start dates, upgrades, cancellation rights and credit support. In effect, carriers will see two different companies. Outside the U.S., SpaceX is a supplier that fills coverage gaps. Inside the U.S., it is becoming a possible competitor. Naturally, carriers in each group will price that risk differently. Fiber, power and field services firms would see site-by-site work, since any large ground rollout needs backhaul, electrical service, backup power and crews. The same supply chain questions we track in our piece on the [AI data center supply chain](/blog/ai-data-center-supply-chain) apply to radios, cabinets and batteries. ## Application to SAVRN SAVRN builds and operates AI data center capacity, so my question is narrow. Could a small number of network aggregation points in a SpaceX ground build also host power and governed inference that stands on its own economics? We covered the demand side in [AI inference infrastructure](/blog/ai-inference-infrastructure). Tower access alone, though, does not make a site fit for compute, so each location would have to clear six checks first, the same screens our free [Site Intelligence](/intelligence/sites) tool runs on an address.

Table 5 Site checks before any compute claim

Electrical supply
Power
Available capacity, upgrade cost, delivery date and tariff
Space and access
Land
Ground area, equipment rights, security and service access
Connectivity
Fiber
Routes, capacity, diversity and commercial terms
Resilience
Backup
Backup duration, redundancy and restoration obligations
Compute suitability
Cooling
Cooling, environmental limits, noise and clearances
Commercial demand
Customer
A named workload and a paying customer
The 80,000-site report does not create demand for 80,000 AI facilities. Instead, the disciplined path is a short list of places where demand, transport, power and operating economics already line up. Any SAVRN capability claim follows delivery there, not before. ## The eight milestones that would prove it 1. Signed U.S. infrastructure agreements, with committed sites separated from optional access. 2. Lease start dates, which show when rent begins relative to deployment. 3. Equipment orders and installs, as evidence that talks are turning into construction. 4. Spectrum approvals and closings, which decide which rights are usable for which service. 5. The first Starship launches of the 15,000-satellite system. 6. Independent performance tests of indoor reliability, busy-hour speed, voice and handoffs, both in the U.S. and in partner markets. 7. Partner launches abroad, starting with Airtel Africa going live market by market. 8. Funding and unit economics, including deployment spend, acquisition cost, retention and margin. ## Bottom line SpaceX is the only company putting every part of a complete mobile network under one owner: a satellite layer that already covers the planet, carrier partners on five continents, its own spectrum in the U.S., and a ground layer it can rent at national scale. By contrast, no carrier has that combination, and none can build the satellite half quickly. That is why I think SpaceX has the best shot at delivering the most complete communications service in the world. Still, the evidence supports a serious, global, well-funded attempt, not yet a working hybrid carrier. The U.S. tower talks matter because they move the story from orbit to signed leases and monthly rent. The test from here is execution: whether satellites, spectrum, partners, sites and customers come together into one service that works in a basement in Manhattan, on a ranch road in West Texas, on a farm in Uganda and on a ship at sea, and earns a return doing it.

What to take from this

## Frequently asked questions ### Has SpaceX signed a deal for 80,000 cell sites? No public agreement exists, because the talks are still talks. Bloomberg reported negotiations on October 22, 2026, and Reuters relayed it 1. SpaceX did not comment, while Crown Castle said it talks with all parties and did not name customers 2. ### Is the SpaceX mobile network only about the United States? No. The tower talks are U.S.-only; however, the satellite layer is global. Starlink broadband operates in more than 160 countries and territories, and its phone service runs through carrier partners on five continents 3. ### Which countries have Starlink phone service today? Launches confirmed with dates in this article's sources are the U.S. with T-Mobile, New Zealand with One NZ, Ukraine with Kyivstar, Kazakhstan with Beeline and Bangladesh with Banglalink 4, 7, 8. Several more carriers are named partners whose launch status I could not confirm from a primary source. ### Does 80,000 sites mean 80,000 new towers? No. A site is a set of radios at a location, rather than a structure. Because it can sit on an existing tower, rooftop or other structure, and several carriers can share one tower, most of the work would be added equipment rather than new steel. ### How much did SpaceX pay for the 800 MHz spectrum? Grain did not disclose a price, since the deal is still pending. However, the Wall Street Journal reported about $8 billion, and the deal still needs FCC approval 21. ### When will the new satellites be in service? Reporting says deployment is expected to begin in 2027 and depends on Starship 17. Meanwhile, the FCC set a completion deadline of October 2035 6. ### How fast will the hybrid service be? The sources do not say, because the service does not exist yet. SpaceX claims more than 100 times the bandwidth of its current satellites; nevertheless, no independent measurements of a hybrid service exist yet. ### Does this end T-Mobile's Starlink partnership? Nothing in the reporting says so; in fact, T-Satellite is still running. The FCC waiver lets SpaceX offer service without a carrier partner, which makes it a possible competitor, while the T-Satellite service continues 6, 7. ### What would it cost SpaceX to rent 80,000 sites? No lease terms are public, so any figure is an illustration. As an illustration only, $2,000 per site per month across 80,000 sites comes to $1.92 billion a year, or $19.2 billion over ten flat years. ### What does this mean for data center and edge computing sites? Only a small share of network sites could host compute, because most are small structures. Specifically, each one would need power, land, fiber, backup, cooling and a paying customer before it qualifies, so the opportunity is site by site rather than 80,000 at once.
Sources
  1. SpaceX in talks for 80,000 cell sites to build nationwide wireless network, report, Investing.com, citing Bloomberg News, Investing.com, 2026; Report of the talks and the 80,000-site figure, October 22, 2026
  2. SpaceX seeks access to 80,000 US cell sites for wireless network, Reuters, AOL, 2026; Crown Castle chief executive comment; U.S; tower counts by owner; TD Cowen estimate above $80 billion; carrier shares down 4.2% to 5%
  3. Starlink reaches 12 million users, Mezha, mezha.ua, 2026; More than 12 million active customers in more than 160 countries and territories, June 2026
  4. Starlink's Phone Service Has Now Reached 11 Million People in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Bangladesh, TeslaNorth, citing Starlink and VEON, TeslaNorth, 2026; Launch dates, customer bases and the counting method behind the 11 million figure
  5. Latham & Watkins Advises on Grain Management Definitive Agreement to Sell Spectrum Portfolio to SpaceX, Latham & Watkins, lw.com, 2026; Definitive agreement for the nationwide 800 MHz portfolio and its regulatory conditions
  6. FCC OKs SpaceX to deploy 15K D2D satellites, and nine years to complete it, Light Reading, Light Reading, 2026; 15,000 satellites in shells from 326 to 335 km, October 2035 deadline, carrier-lease waiver, service scope inside and outside the U.S
  7. T-Satellite is Here, And Now It's Powering Apps, T-Mobile, Business Wire, 2025; App data on T-Satellite from October 1, 2025, over 650+ Starlink direct-to-cell satellites
  8. Starlink Direct to Cell Service Now Available, SpaceX, starlink.com, 2025; Service live with T-Mobile and One NZ; testing in Australia, Canada, Chile and Japan at the time
  9. Kyivstar Launches Starlink Direct to Cell Satellite Connectivity in Ukraine, Kyivstar, Kyivstar investor relations, 2025; First launch in Europe, starting with messaging
  10. Starlink signs landmark global direct-to-cell deal with Veon as satellite-to-phone race heats up, Reuters, Yahoo Finance, 2025; More than 150 million potential customers; Rogers named as a partner; partners in 11 countries at the time
  11. Starlink Direct to Cell Becomes the World's Largest 4G Coverage Provider, TechAfrica News, TechAfrica News, 2025; Partner list naming Optus, Telstra, Rogers, One NZ, KDDI, Salt, Entel and Kyivstar; the headline is the outlet's own claim
  12. Airtel Uganda Joins a Growing Global Wave as It Begins Testing Starlink's Direct-to-Cell Service, Space in Africa, Space in Africa, 2026; Uganda testing from May 2026; MasOrange added early 2026; partner status list
  13. Kenya: Airtel, SpaceX Partner On Starlink Mobile Connectivity, AllAfrica, AllAfrica, 2025; Agreement across 14 African markets and 174 million customers, launch in 2026 subject to approvals
  14. Starlink Update, Doug Dawson, CCG Consulting, POTs and PANs, 2026; Earlier customer milestones of 9 million in 155 countries and 10 million
  15. How many satellites does the US have, KeepTrack, using Jonathan McDowell's catalog, keeptrack.space, 2026; 11,143 working Starlink satellites on September 30, 2026
  16. The State of Mobile Internet Connectivity 2025: Network Coverage and Infrastructure, GSMA, GSMA, 2025; 300 million people without mobile broadband coverage; Sub-Saharan Africa gap 10%; 3.1 billion covered but not using
  17. FCC Grants SpaceX Approval for 15,000 Direct-to-Device Satellites in MSS Spectrum, Via Satellite, Satellite Today, 2026; FCC order of October 6, deferred spectrum requests, Starship-dependent deployment from 2027
  18. Starlink Direct to Cell, SpaceX, starlink.com, 2026; Onboard cellular modem, laser backhaul and roaming-style carrier integration
  19. EchoStar Corporation Form 10-Q, quarter ended June 30, 2026, EchoStar Corporation, SEC EDGAR, 2026; Transfer of AWS-4 and H-Block licenses to the trust completed; $17 billion consideration; AWS-3 add-on
  20. EchoStar Corporation Form 10-K, fiscal year 2025, EchoStar Corporation, SEC EDGAR, 2026; Spectrum acquisition closing expected about November 30, 2027, and the two-step trust structure
  21. SpaceX to acquire Grain's 800MHz spectrum assets to further advance carrier ambitions, DatacenterDynamics, DCD, 2026; Low-band role next to 2 GHz holdings; Wall Street Journal report of about $8 billion; T-Mobile origin of the spectrum
  22. Wireless Infrastructure By The Numbers: 2025 Key Statistics, Wireless Infrastructure Association, WIA, 2026; U.S; towers, macrocell sites, outdoor small cells and indoor nodes at year-end 2025
  23. Crown Castle Soars 13% as SpaceX's $8 Billion Spectrum Buy Keeps Tower Build Option Very Much Alive, TIKR, TIKR, 2026; Bernstein view on the tower option; SpaceX statement on the remaining technical gap
  24. SpaceX Teil 2: US-Funkmastbetreiber mit Kursaufschlaegen, stock3, stock3, 2026; Bernstein range of 30,000 to 120,000 sites and $50 billion to $130 billion