Elon Musk's SpaceX is in talks to secure access to at least 80,000 cell sites across the United States, according to a Bloomberg News report — a move that would clear the way for the rocket and satellite company to build America's fourth nationwide wireless carrier.
Photo: David Ratledge, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
SpaceX is negotiating with the companies that own America's cell towers, including Crown Castle, which operates about 40,000 towers in the US. The other major landlords of the airwaves are American Tower, with roughly 42,000 US sites, and Vertical Bridge, with about 18,000. Asked about the talks on Crown Castle's third-quarter earnings call, CEO Christian Hillabrant said the company was talking to "all parties" but declined to name customers.
The ground network would complement what SpaceX is already building in orbit. The company is acquiring nationwide low-band spectrum and has won FCC approval for 15,000 direct-to-cell satellites that can connect ordinary phones from space. Musk has been blunt about the ambition: "We will be building out our terrestrial networks."
Building a rival to AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile from scratch would be one of the most expensive projects in telecom history. Analysts at TD Cowen estimate a nationwide terrestrial network would cost more than $80 billion and take many years to complete. The wireless push is the latest expansion of Musk's empire, following reports that he is also weighing a merger between SpaceX and Tesla.
Investors in the incumbent carriers are already feeling the pressure. On Friday, shares of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile fell between 3 and 5 percent in premarket and extended trading, while the tower companies rallied — Crown Castle jumped roughly 8.5 to 10 percent and American Tower gained about 4 to 5.6 percent.
A fourth national carrier would reshape a market that has had only three nationwide networks since T-Mobile absorbed Sprint in 2020. Regulators approved that merger partly on the promise that a new competitor would emerge. Six years later, that competitor may turn out to be a rocket company.