From CommsDay of 17 June 2026
Our Story of the Week is from Wednesday’s CommsDay. We have all witnessed the public float of SpaceX and Elon Musk’s becoming the world’s first trillionaire (on paper). In the article that we reprint as Story of the Week, SpaceX’s ambitions, particularly for Starlink Mobile, are covered, based on SEC filings by the company. These ambitions are not modest.
Readers will recall that many governments, regulators and, especially, incumbent mobile network operators have defined the “appropriate” place in the supply chain for telecommunications service provision that Starlink and other LEO satellite service providers should occupy. They have said, variously, that Starlink would have a role in backhaul, or in partnering with established national telcos, or in providing service to rural and remote areas where the economics do not favour terrestrial infrastructure. They have also said that Starlink is too expensive for most residential customers, particularly in developing economies. All of these comments were intended to be comforting for those with stakes in the status quo and its continuation. But they assumed that LEO satellite operators, and especially Starlink, knew their place and would fit in.
Grahame Lynch’s article makes it clear that Starlink “does not know its place” and intends to be a genuine disruptor of supply and value chains. Why would we have ever thought otherwise?
SpaceX signals metro telco ambitions for Starlink Mobile
SpaceX has signalled that Starlink Mobile is ultimately aimed at the broader telecoms market, telling investors it wants to be the preferred provider for customers in rural, suburban, urban and remote areas as its satellite constellation grows and service performance improves.
The statement, contained in new SEC filings lodged over the weekend, frames Starlink Mobile as more than an emergency messaging or mobile blackspot product.
SpaceX said the service would initially be “most impactful for customers in remote areas uncovered by terrestrial mobile networks,” but added that its ambitions extend well beyond the traditional coverage gap.
“As our constellation grows and our product performance continues to improve, we will compete to be the preferred connectivity experience to our customers no matter where they are located, whether in rural, suburban, or urban areas,” SpaceX said. The company said the next generation of Starlink Mobile satellites, combined with its recent purchase of wireless spectrum from EchoStar, was “designed to provide high bandwidth and low latency connectivity directly to end user devices,” enabling “a connectivity solution on par with terrestrial mobile networks.”
That language points to a more direct challenge for mobile operators, which have largely framed satellite-to-mobile as a complementary technology for emergency use, remote coverage and disaster resilience. SpaceX’s prospectus instead presents direct-to-device as a future participant in the wider mobile connectivity market.
SpaceX cited Omdia estimates that there were 8 billion mobile connected devices globally as at 31 December 2025, and World Bank estimates that 40% of the global population lived in rural areas in 2024, “where terrestrial mobile coverage can be limited or unreliable.”
It estimated a weighted average monthly mobile ARPU of US$8 per user globally, comprising US$18 in high-income markets, US$5 in upper-middle income markets, and US$2 in lower-middle and low-income markets.
“Based on the total number of connected devices globally and the mobile ARPU, we estimate the Starlink Mobile market opportunity to be $740 billion,” SpaceX said.
The near-term service is already operating at scale. SpaceX said its dedicated satellite-to-mobile constellation had grown from about 360 V1 Mobile satellites in January 2025 to about 650 as at 31 March 2026.
“Through this constellation and in partnership with more than 30 MNOs, we provided data, over-the-top voice, and messaging services to approximately 7.4 million monthly unique devices across approximately 30 countries,” it said. SpaceX said the current V1 constellation supports “light data, text messaging, and over-the-top voice services,” including applications such as WhatsApp and FaceTime, while more comprehensive services would include broadband data and IoT connectivity.
It also detailed how Starlink Mobile is being sold through carriers. SpaceX said its partnerships with MNOs span six continents, “covering an area that is home to approximately 1.9 billion people.”
“We charge MNOs either a fixed fee or a per-mobile user fee-based amount, which is typically passed through to the customer via the carrier as an ‘add-on’ feature,” SpaceX said. That creates a tension for operators. In the near term, Starlink Mobile can help them extend coverage and create a premium add-on. Over time, SpaceX is telling investors that the same platform could compete for the customer relationship in markets where those operators already operate.
MNO PARTNERS: SpaceX names both Optus and Telstra among its MNO partners, alongside T-Mobile in the US, One NZ, Rogers, KDDI, Salt, Entel, Kyivstar and VMO2.
SpaceX added that in 2025 it entered agreements to acquire “65 MHz of spectrum in the United States and certain global spectrum licenses from EchoStar,” in a transaction it said would “enable a step-change in the possibilities for our Starlink Mobile service.” The deal involved US$19.6bn in equity and cash consideration and is expected to close in November 2027, subject to regulatory approvals and other closing conditions.
SpaceX said the wider bandwidth enabled by the EchoStar spectrum, combined with authorisation to deploy 7,500 satellites using the 2GHz spectrum band, would support “potential future services, including broadband data and IoT connectivity,” and was “expected to enable 5G connectivity.”
The prospectus is also clear that the opportunity is not unconstrained. SpaceX said its satellite connectivity services depend on spectrum access and approvals from the US Federal Communications Commission and telecoms regulators in other countries. “Without these licenses and approvals, we generally cannot offer connectivity services in a given market,” it said, adding that each international jurisdiction has its own regulatory process and timeline. SpaceX has previously expressed concerns that its desired Australian spectrum may be auctioned to rivals.
SpaceX is also presenting Starlink as a broader connectivity platform. It said Starlink had about 9,600 broadband and mobile satellites in low Earth orbit as at 31 March 2026, providing broadband connectivity to about 10.3 million subscribers across 164 countries, territories and other markets, up about 105% from 5 million a year earlier.
The company claimed median latency of about 25 milliseconds and “fibre-like download speeds,” with “a median of 225Mbps during peak hours for residential users”. It said its Starlink broadband and mobile satellites accounted for about 75% of all active manoeuvrable satellites in orbit at that date.
ENTERPRISE THREAT: The enterprise threat to telcos is also explicit. SpaceX said Starlink Enterprise serves customers across “construction, agriculture, retail, telecom, hospitality, aviation, maritime, and land mobility,” and was “well-suited for deployments across field offices, remote worksites, research stations, drilling rigs, rural hospitals, aircraft, cruise ships, trains, and hotels.”
It said fixed-site enterprise customers require “high availability for critical operations as well as reliable connectivity in remote or hard-to-serve locations.”
“As companies continue to invest in secure and resilient networks and backup systems to keep critical infrastructure online—such as point-of-sale and payment processing systems—we often start as a backup solution and then transition to being the primary solution,” SpaceX said.
SpaceX named United Airlines, Carnival, Maersk and John Deere among enterprise customers, and said that since 2023 “no Starlink Enterprise customer having contributed more than $750,000 of annual revenue has voluntarily discontinued their service.” The next capacity step depends on Starship. SpaceX said V3 satellites are “designed to offer one Tbps of downlink capacity per satellite,” and that a single Starship launch is expected to deploy up to 60 V3 satellites to low Earth orbit, “representing a potential twenty-fold increase in Starlink downlink capacity deployed relative to a Falcon 9 launch.”
For mobile services, SpaceX said it expected Starship to be able to deploy about 50 mobile satellites per launch, “significantly increasing capacity.” But SpaceX warned that its existing launch vehicles cannot deploy those next generation systems. “Our current operational rockets, including Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, are not capable of deploying V3 satellites and V2 Mobile satellites,” it said.
The prospectus also shows how central connectivity has already become to SpaceX’s revenue mix. SpaceX reported total 2025 revenue of US$18.67bn, with connectivity contributing US$11.39bn, or around 61% of the total. Consumer connectivity was the largest single revenue line at US$7.21bn, ahead of enterprise and government connectivity at US$4.18bn. Space launch revenue was US$4.09bn, while AI contributed US$3.20bn.
Grahame Lynch
IN TODAY’S COMMSDAY (Friday 19 June 2026)
A major Vodafone outage yesterday was caused by the failure of power in a significant network node at a data centre in western Sydney, owner TPG Telecom has confirmed. A spokesperson said the outage affected a significant number of customers, but not in the millions, as media and consumer groups had suggested.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has rejected a request by Amazon’s satellite arm to be exempted from new wholesale and networks record keeping rules until it builds scale in the local market.
Investigations of network activity by the NSW Telco Authority and the NSW Department of Customer Service in late 2025 uncovered evidence of activity linked to the high-profile China-based threat actor dubbed Salt Typhoon.
Australian neocloud Sharon AI has raised US$1.6 billion ($2.27 billion) in financing via private placements to support its ambition of deploying one of Australia’s largest AI factories in collaboration with NVIDIA.
Amazon Web Services has inked a deal with Greater Western Water to connect its upcoming western Melbourne data centre to the Melton Recycled Water Plant from day one of its operation.
Data Centres Australia has told the federal government that its members back stronger enforcement of security obligations for critical infrastructure organisations. However, it warned that a move to a “punitive” compliance framework may be counterproductive to promoting collaboration between government and industry.
The federal government will lift the turnover threshold for the small business active asset capital gains tax concession from $2m to $10 million as it seeks to address concerns from startups, small business and investors over its wider tax reform package.
Internal departmental documents released under FOI show the federal government was fielding escalating regional coverage complaints within weeks of the October 2024 3G shutdown, including concerns about Triple Zero access, farm safety and business disruption, while officials relied on the distinction between formal mapped coverage obligations and “fortuitous” 3G coverage that mobile operators were not required to replace.
Rural Fibre Co will complete and operate Swoop’s fibre broadband network build in Churchill, under a project funded by the Victorian Government’s Connecting Victoria program.
Amazon Web Services has identified four key architectural considerations for telecommunications operators deploying artificial intelligence across their networks and operations.
Mavenir has partnered with Red Hat to launch an integrated AI platform aimed at network operators seeking to offer AI services directly to customers.
The Australian Signals Directorate is consulting with its partners in the Cyber Security Network on evolving the Essential Eight framework.
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