\n
<\/p>\n
SpaceX, via Starlink, is an internet service provider. In fact, that\u2019s the only profitable division at SpaceX. But it doesn\u2019t, on the whole, make a profit. Its free cash flow for 2025 was negative $9.1 billion. According to its prospectus, it nonetheless sees a $28.5 trillion \u201caddressable market.\u201d If you\u2019d like to hear about SpaceX\u2019s plans to make money in the future in CEO Elon Musk\u2019s own words, have at it. The plan involves an AI that learns from ancient aliens, and in this blogger\u2019s opinion, it\u2019s gibberish. But right now, you can\u2014kinda, sorta\u2014sign up for SpaceX as a mobile phone provider. T-Mobile\u2019s T-Satellite with Starlink uses SpaceX satellites to fill in coverage gaps. Last year, in a puzzling move to most people (myself included, honestly) SpaceX paid $17 billion to the parent company of Dish Network, Echostar, in order to get its hands on a bunch of wireless spectrum. Frequencies are a heavily regulated, finite resource. It\u2019s a little like buying real estate in the form of permission to use certain wavelengths.<\/p>\n
But a plan for SpaceX to become a consumer-facing mobile phone provider is taking shape. As noted by Bloomberg, SpaceX has been in talks with Charter Communications, the owner of the internet service provider Spectrum. Spectrum\u2019s many, many cables are used in part to route data around for mobile phones, which are more reliant on cables than you might think.<\/p>\n
Per Bloomberg, \u201cA deal, if finalized, would help SpaceX along its desired path toward becoming more of a direct-to-consumer mobile phone provider.\u201d This is why it bought frequencies from Echostar. And since SpaceX already provides a coverage-gap filling service to T-Mobile, you can definitely see the case that SpaceX\u2019s own provider would be better than many of the others at providing coverage in hard-to-reach areas. It has other spectrum gaps it would need to fill in to be competitive, but a SpaceX mobile network looks increasingly plausible down the line.<\/p>\n