From CommsDay of 6 August 2026
Our Story of the Week was published across two articles in CommsDay yesterday. The first article is about the progress of the Starlink business gloabally. The second article is an analysis by Grahame Lynch of Starlink’s business strategy including the growth and development of its Australian business. The second article links Starlink’s positioning with other developments in Australia, including ACCC’s announcement yesterday of a year-long review into national mobile roaming in Australia, a matter last reviewed in 2017. We could easily have made the ACCC’s announcement the Story of the Week, but, given the timetable that the ACCC is planning, the review will be around for some time and attract much media attention. That will be the case even if some of the stakeholders, who are hoping for a much quicker decision in favour of national mobile roaming, prevail.
Starlink subscribers double as SpaceX maps hybrid mobile network
SpaceX has revealed that global Starlink subscribers doubled to 12 million over the year to 30 June, lifting quarterly connectivity revenue 66% to US$4.29 billion, as executives outlined plans to build a hybrid satellite and terrestrial US mobile network that they believe can compete directly with incumbent operators.
The company intends to combine next generation direct-to-device satellites with 65MHz of EchoStar spectrum and a terrestrial network of small cellular base stations colocated with Starlink broadband terminals, avoiding the need for a conventional nationwide macro-cell rollout.
President and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell said the approach would create a “true mobile service”, while chief executive Elon Musk argued it could ultimately provide higher bandwidth than existing cellular networks.
Shotwell said the current Starlink Mobile service operates over around 5MHz of spectrum through partner mobile operators, but the EchoStar spectrum and a tenfold increase in satellite numbers would make the next-generation service “100x better”.
She said SpaceX expected to begin launching the new mobile satellites next year and start commercial service by the end of the year.
The company added more than 1.7 million net consumer subscribers during the June quarter, its strongest quarter on record, taking the total to 12 million. Connectivity revenue reached US$4.29 billion, with consumer broadband contributing US$2.49 billion and enterprise and government services, including Starlink Mobile, generating US$1.81 billion. Connectivity operating income increased 79% to US$1.66 billion, while adjusted EBITDA rose 64% to US$2.6 billion.
SpaceX now operates in 167 markets with around 10,200 broadband and mobile satellites in orbit. The company said its next-generation V3 broadband satellites would provide more than ten times the capacity of the current generation, with Musk expecting a material improvement in customer experience once around 1,000 V3 satellites are deployed, which he estimated would occur during the second quarter of next year.
The earnings call also highlighted growing confidence in Starlink’s enterprise business. Shotwell said SpaceX had never lost an enterprise customer and remained less than 10% penetrated in aviation despite signing American Airlines during the quarter and activating services with Southwest, Virgin Atlantic, Iberia and Aer Lingus. Musk said Starlink’s reliability had improved to the point where businesses could increasingly adopt it as a primary rather than backup connection, adding that he expected enterprise revenue to eventually exceed consumer revenue.
Shotwell also set out the company’s ambitions in mobile, noting that the three largest US operators generated around US$600 billion annually and predicting SpaceX would win “quite a few” of their customers by eliminating dead zones and improving network resilience during natural disasters.
Overall, SpaceX reported quarterly revenue of US$7.81 billion, up 92% year-onyear, while adjusted EBITDA increased 191% to US$3.5 billion.
Grahame Lynch
ANALYSIS BY GRAHAME LYNCH
Why Starlink might be the biggest winner from the ACCC inquiry
The timing is irresistible. On the same day Starlink affirmed its terrestrial mobile ambitions in the United States, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission opened the door to a regulatory pathway that could make those ambitions considerably easier to realise in Australia.
As reported elsewhere in this issue, Starlink has formally signalled that it intends to become a fully fledged US mobile operator. Among the ideas being floated is the use of subscribers’ Starlink dishes as small cellular base stations or repeaters for its satelliteconnected mobile service.
The concept is reminiscent of how fixed broadband operators have used customers’ gateways to create distributed public WiFi networks.
Starlink’s path in the US is complicated by the reported refusal of incumbent mobile operators to provide it with MVNO access to their networks.
But if one element of the ACCC’s new mobile inquiry develops into something substantive, the path could be much smoother in Australia.
Much of the attention surrounding yesterday’s announcement focused on the prospect of regulated domestic mobile roaming. What caught my eye, however, was the inquiry’s second limb: whether the ACCC should declare a radio access network service.
That is effectively shorthand for regulated access for so-called thick MVNOs, allowing them to operate as de facto mobile network operators with rights they largely lack under their present commercial arrangements with the MNOs.
There is little doubt that, if Starlink wanted to become an Australian MVNO today, at least one local carrier would be willing to sign it up on commercial terms. A regulated access service would nevertheless be far more attractive. It would transfer much of the negotiating leverage to the access seeker, because an incumbent’s ability to bluff, obfuscate or impose restrictive terms would be constrained by
ACCC-defined access conditions and pricing principles.
Why would Starlink want to become an Australian mobile provider? It already has more than 500,000 satellite broadband customers here, spread across fixed and semi-nomadic installations. It is already offering limited direct-todevice text and data services through Telstra and potentially Optus. From 2028, it could also be supplying a broader direct-to-device service that the three incumbent MNOs may be obliged to acquire to meet their Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation, unless a credible competitive alternative emerges.
Why would Starlink not move downstream and offer its own mobile add-on, connecting directly to satellites in suitable outdoor locations and via the existing dish in the home and roaming onto a host network elsewhere? It already has half a million potential recruits. And if new research from analyst Ian Martin proves correct, it could soon have many more.
Martin argues that the satellite and spectrum constraints of Starlink’s existing broadband network limit its addressable market to areas with population densities of roughly 10 premises per square kilometre. On his calculations, that gives Starlink an Australian addressable market of as many as 2.8 million premises today.
Starlink’s next generation of satellites is expected to deliver roughly ten times the capacity. Martin argues that this could extend the service economically into areas with densities of up to 100 people per square kilometre, increasing its addressable Australian market to about 4.5 million premises — roughly one-third of the country.
STARLINK IN AUSTRALIA TODAY: With about 550,000 customers and an assumed average revenue per user in the vicinity of Starlink’s reported global figure of A$100 a month, its existing Australian broadband operation could already be generating close
to $700 million in annual revenue.
An expansion of its broadband footprint along the lines Martin envisages could lift that figure substantially.
Add a hybrid mobile service centred on connectivity over Starlink’s own constellation, cross-sold to its large fixed broadband base along with wholesale revenue from helping other carriers meet their outdoor coverage obligations, and it is not difficult to see a pathway towards Starlink becoming a $2 billion Australian business.
And remember that Starlink’s parent, SpaceX, increasingly appears to regard connectivity as only one part of a broader equation incorporating artificial intelligence compute and social content through X.
The ACCC is not rushing its inquiry, and there will be no shortage of permutations in the policy debate over the next year. But from this vantage point, Starlink is sitting pretty.
Australia’s three major MNOs will be required by law to source a direct-to-device service in a field where Starlink has an early technological lead. At the same time, the ACCC is canvassing regulations that could oblige those same operators to provide Starlink with regulated, cost-based access to their national mobile networks.
Starlink already has the largest non-NBN customer base in the Australian fixed broadband market. With billions of dollars of potential revenue on offer, the real question is whether it will approach mobile with the same acquisitive posture — and a compelling cross-sell proposition for its growing army of existing customers.
And of course Starlink might not be the only player here. Amazon, anyone?
Grahame Lynch
IN TODAY’S COMMSDAY (Friday 7 August 2026)
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb has put resilience at the centre of the agency’s approach to infrastructure regulation, arguing that markets and networks must be able to withstand shocks while continuing to support competition, investment and consumer confidence.
Starlink’s move towards becoming a terrestrial mobile operator in the United States has added a new dimension to its differences with Australian mobile operators over control of the 2GHz mobile-satellite service band.
Flag Telecom, formerly Global Cloud Xchange, has appointed former Telstra executive Paul Abfalter as CEO, replacing Carl Grivner, who will move into a non-executive chairman role after six years leading the company.
Australia dominated Asia-Pacific digital infrastructure debt financing by value in the first half of 2026, propelled by more than US$12 billion of funding secured by Firmus Technologies and STACK Infrastructure for hyperscale and artificial intelligence datacentres.
A former executive who has worked at both Gigacomm and DGtek has warned that the value of their newly combined fibre network will depend less on the number of buildings passed than on converting apartments into paying customers.
AI has the potential to add between $95 billion and $116 billion to the Australian economy by 2036 from productivity gains and additional investment, economic modelling from strategy consultancy EY-Parthenon indicates.
Southern Launch has completed a rocket launch for the Defence Science and Technology Group at its Koonibba Test Range in South Australia.
The Commerce Commission is reviewing whether the availability of 5G and other competing technologies to fibre are adequately captured in the input methodologies used to determine New Zealand’s fibre regulatory framework.
More than 1500 school girls across New Zealand will participate in ShadowTech26, a program designed to give students a first-hand look at job opportunities within the nation’s technology sector.
Simon Draper has been appointed secretary of the federal Department of Industry, Science and Resources for a five-year term beginning on 6 October.
New Zealand’s Commerce Commission has appointed four executives to its leadership team, including Sarah Bartlett as general manager, market regulation, and Hillary Walker as general counsel and general manager legal services.
New Zealand tower operator Fortysouth has won an emerging technology award at the 2026 New Zealand CIO Innovation Awards for its digital twin program.
Satellite IoT provider Myriota has appointed former Altium and Infomedia finance chief Richard Leon as chief financial officer as it prepares for an upcoming capital raising and further international expansion.
Indara has appointed George Tsoukas as executive director, sales, a newly created role within its expanded executive leadership team.
All Nippon Airways has deployed Equinix Fabric to create a centralised cloud network hub, cutting network provisioning time by about 80% as it prepares for a tenfold increase in global data volumes.
Ciena has completed a live-network optical encryption trial combining post-quantum cryptography and quantum key distribution at 1.6Tbps.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR FROM ANDREW SHERIDAN: When you hear cries of “there’s no need for further debate”, “the arguments are clear” and “we should act now” regarding mobile regulation, then red lights should be flashing.
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