Starlink Takes Aim at the U.S. Mobile Communications Market, SpaceX (SPCX.US) Opens New Growth Space: Wall Street Focuses on Reshaping the Telecom Industry Landscape

Title context: Starlink Takes Aim at the U.S. Mobile Communications Market, SpaceX (SPCX.US) Opens New Growth Space: Wall Street Focuses on Reshaping the Telecom Industry Landscape Text: SpaceX (SPCX.US), the "AI + space exploration" leader founded and helmed by Musk with a market value exceeding $2 trillion, plans a blockbuster acquisition of the nationwide 800MHz spectrum portfolio held by Grain Management, involving up to 14MHz of paired spectrum, marking a key step toward becoming a full-fledged mobile communications operator. This major transaction initiated by SpaceX still awaits approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and media reports citing people familiar with the matter say the deal is worth about $8 billion. The market immediately reassessed the competitive moats of traditional telecom operators, and the three major U.S. carriersAT&T, Verizon and T-Mobilefell sharply in Thursday's after-hours trading, with AT&T, which has explicitly refused to cooperate with SpaceX in recent years, at one point dropping about 6%. The news of this blockbuster acquisition plan also comes as SpaceX's stock has rebounded strongly under a series of powerful catalysts related to plans to build space-based AI data centers and orders for ground-based AI computing infrastructuresince early August, SpaceX's stock has rebounded nearly 50% from its post-listing bottom. Although SpaceX closed Thursday's regular session down 4.19% at $160.57, it has still rebounded about 48.3% cumulatively from its August 5 closing low of $108.27; after the spectrum deal plan was announced, the stock quickly recovered in after-hours trading, and as of 16:30 Beijing time on October 9, it was quoted at $166.47 in pre-market U.S. trading, rebounding nearly 4% in the pre-market session. The technical value of the latest acquisition plan lies in advancing the "Starlink" satellite internet and ground networks to form a more complete Starlink network coverage system. Starlink's satellite network excels at covering remote areas and ground communications blind spots, while the newly added low-band spectrum helps improve penetration connectivity in buildings and complex obstructed environments as well as signal penetration and indoor coverage through ground system deployment. That is, the satellite network provides wide-area coverage and supplements ground blind spots, while the low-band ground network improves connectivity inside buildings and in complex obstructed environments, with the two forming a complementary whole. Combined with its existing satellite capacity, SpaceX is filling in the capabilities needed to upgrade from "emergency connectivity needed occasionally" to "mobile service used daily." Grain's formal announcement explicitly positions the transaction as a fusion of ground and space connectivity; at the same time, the FCC has approved SpaceX's deployment of a new constellation of 15,000 direct-to-terminal satellites, opening up room for mobile business expansion. From an investment logic perspective, expanding coverage scenarios is expected to allow Starlink to move further from an auxiliary service provider into competition for primary SIM users, home broadband and enterprise communications budgets. The core logic chain behind Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., JPMorgan, Citi and TD Cowen's bullish long-term bull case for SpaceX stock is precisely thisnear-term/short-term revenue leaps driven by ground-based AI computing leasing, and long-term growth space jointly expanded by Starlink satellite connectivity, high-frequency launch capabilities, space-based AI data centers and AI application businesses. Satellite internet demonstrates the "rise of a new king"is SpaceX's Starlink about to change the rules of the global telecom game? Market commentary outlet The Kobeissi Letter posted on X that SpaceX's acquisition of telecom assets will bring "one of the largest disruptions in history" to the telecom and communications industry. On Thursday, Elon Musk's SpaceX (SPCX.US) said the company is moving toward competing with major U.S. mobile operators and announced it has agreed to acquire up to 14MHz of paired spectrum in the 800MHz band. The news sent shockwaves through the telecom industry. After the news was announced, shares of AT&T (T.US), T-Mobile US (TMUS.US), Verizon (VZ.US) and another cable broadband internet service giant, Comcast Corporation Class A (CMCSA.US), all fell sharply, and they remained on a downward trajectory in Friday's pre-market session. Telecom industry experts and Wall Street strategists generally believe that Starlink's formal entry into telecom will completely disrupt the industry's long-entrenched market share structure. Investor and social media opinion leader Sawyer Merritt posted on X: "The Starlink Mobile network is about to change the game." Starlink is acquiring spectrum licenses, moving further toward becoming a super telecom operator with increasingly complete U.S. business coverage. The Kobeissi Letter posted on X that this development will bring "one of the largest disruptions in the history of the telecom and internet services industry." The Kobeissi Letter pointed out that for decades, the industry has suffered from insufficient competition, slow innovation, limited coverage and increasingly mediocre service levels. It said: "SpaceX, the AI and commercial space giant with ticker SPCX, is about to change all of this. This sends a clear wake-up call to the industry's incumbents: evolve, or be left behind." Analysts from well-known Wall Street investment research firm William Blair noted that existing wireless and telecom broadband operators have publicly questioned whether SpaceX's network can match the service quality of their own networks. The analysts said: "We expect SpaceX to launch highly attractive Starlink broadband and Starlink Mobile bundle packages. The company may also add Grok B2B or B2C AI application subscriptions to the packages." Space and Tesla, Inc. CEO Elon Musk said on social media X that the move completes "the last key piece of the spectrum puzzle SpaceX needs to provide full smartphone communications coverage in the United States." Currently, SpaceX provides mobile connectivity through its Starlink Direct to Cell smartphone direct-to-satellite service, partnering with mobile operators such as T-Mobile in the U.S. to let existing 4G LTE and above phones connect directly to satellites in areas without ground cellular network coverage. It is understood that among the three major U.S. telecom operators, the one that chose deep ties with Starlink is T-Mobile, while AT&T chose Starlink's core competitor. T-Mobile and SpaceX have reached an exclusive agreement to use T-Mobile's spectrum (such as PCS bands) together with Starlink's Direct-to-Cell satellites to create "space-based base stations." AT&T did not choose Starlink, but instead established a long-term exclusive commercial partnership with another well-known satellite communications company, AST SpaceMobile, and made a direct strategic investment in it. According to SpaceX's 2025 progress report, the service has allowed more than 12 million people to connect at least once; in remote or deep nature areas without traditional mobile network coverage, an average of more than 6 million people actively use the service each month. Billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya said on X that this portfolio acquisition is "very significant." Musk said in another post: "This will sound very crazy, but I see a path where SpaceX could be worth multiple orders of magnitude more than the current size of the Earth economy." Mach33 founder and CEO Aaron Burnett posted on X that phones launching in 2027 and 2028 will be equipped with chipsets capable of natively supporting Starlink Mobile's other higher-throughput spectrum. He said: "This is another part of the spectrum puzzle that has already been solved, but the related discussion happened before SpaceX went public, so it has not received widespread attention." Musk replied "Yes" on X, confirming it. Gene Munster, a veteran fund manager at top asset management firm Deepwater Asset Management, discussed the possibility of Starlink soon launching its own mobile device. He posted on X: "Elon says he doesn't want to make a phone. But I still think SpaceX will eventually do so." Munster said a phone vertically integrated with the Starlink Mobile network could offer features other telecom operators cannot match, and communications service prices would be much cheaper. He said: "This would cause bigger problems for Samsung than for Apple Inc. Apple Inc.'s tight integration between devices and services is harder to break." Earlier this year, Musk said launching a Starlink phone is "not impossible." He said on X that the company's phone would be "very different" from existing phones and would be specifically optimized for running neural networks at the highest performance per watt. However, Musk confirmed in February that SpaceX was not developing a mobile device at the time, quelling related rumors. With SpaceX's latest news, these telecom operators drew attention on the retail investor interaction platform Stocktwits. As of press time, retail investor sentiment around SPCX (i.e., SpaceX) stock was "bullish," while discussion volume remained at a "high" level. The stock is also one of the most popular tickers on the platform. One user said: "SPCXElon Musk's SpaceX just made a major move to challenge the traditional U.S. communications industry, and stocks like AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon are getting hammered." However, another user said: "VZ, Tdon't worry about Starlink. These two companies will remain solid for a very, very long time." Meanwhile, despite AT&T's share price decline, retail sentiment around AT&T stock remained "bullish." From "signal gap-filling" to "user acquisition battle": Starlink is rewriting the competitive boundaries of the telecom industry Owning spectrum and building its own network will strengthen SpaceX's control over product pricing, customer relationships and package combinations. William Blair's equity analyst team expects SpaceX may launch attractive "Starlink broadband + Starlink Mobile" bundles, possibly even including Grok services. The investment implication of this idea is to expand revenue contribution per customer through cross-selling across home, mobile and AI services, and to reduce customer acquisition costs. The share price pressure on the three major traditional U.S. telecom operators, including AT&T, reflects the market beginning to price back in the possibility of future subscriber losses, negative price competition and higher customer retention operating expenses; Starlink, meanwhile, is highly likely to gain a larger telecom industry serviceable market. Wall Street is generally clearly bullish on SpaceX's stock and fundamental growth prospects: of 38 Wall Street analysts aggregated by S&P Global, 30 gave "Buy" or "Strong Buy" ratings, with an average target price of $225.61. Analysts' core bullish investment logic around SpaceX is forming a mutually reinforcing combination of "AI computing resource leasing and sales expanding near-term revenue, Starlink mobile services expanding the long-term user market, and launch capabilities supporting network expansion." This spectrum acquisition further enhances the commercialization completeness of the satellite internet and communications/connectivity business, and also gives the market reason to evaluate the company from the perspective of a broader infrastructure platform. Anthropic has announced it will use all the computing power of SpaceX's Colossus 1, involving more than 300MW of capacity and more than 220,000 NVIDIA Corporation GPUs, directly supporting Claude in raising service limits. A computing leasing contract between Alphabet Inc. Class C and SpaceX involves about 110,000 NVIDIA Corporation GPUs and supporting components, with monthly payments of $920 million from October 2026 to June 2029; after the end of 2026, either party may terminate with 90 days' notice. These transactions reveal another commercialization path for SpaceX: rapid deployment of computing power not only serves its own large-model iteration, but can also meet the needs of other model developers. After the spectrum acquisition news emerged, Wall Street financial giant JPMorgan maintained its "Overweight" rating on SpaceX in its latest research report, emphasizing that Starlink is advancing toward a complete "satellite + ground" mobile network, making long-term commercialization more credible and extending market space to IoT, autonomous driving and Siasun Robot&Automation. JPMorgan said the planned acquisition of Grain's 800MHz, up to 14MHz paired spectrum strengthens indoor coverage and complements the planned acquisition of EchoStar's 65MHz mid-band spectrum in terms of coverage and capacity; without an MVNO agreement leasing existing U.S. carrier networks, SpaceX would likely need to build a ground macro base station network to provide an experience comparable to traditional carriers. Its low-band reserves are still far below AT&T's roughly 90MHz, so JPMorgan expects follow-on acquisitions may occur, and believes Anterix's 900MHz spectrum, valued at about $2.6 billion, is especially well suited to the need. Spectrum competition will also extend to auctions: SpaceX may participate more actively in the 2027 Upper C-Band and 2028 auctions of the 1.6, 2.7, 4.4 and 7GHz bands. JPMorgan believes the previous benchmark of about $40 billion in total auction spending has room to be revised upward, with an optimistic scenario of about $53 billion, corresponding to $0.75 and $1 per MHz per population covered; the FCC's goal of more than $100 billion in auction revenue by 2028 also becomes more achievable. The three major carriers face pressure from a new competitor and rising spectrum procurement costs, but ground network construction is time-consuming and costly, so the near-term fundamental impact is limited. JPMorgan believes tower leasing is another main beneficiary line. Based on assumptions of 60,000-70,000 macro sites and monthly rent of $1,800-$2,000 per site, JPMorgan estimates annual tower rent of about $1.6 billion-$1.8 billion after full deployment, corresponding to about 10%-12% incremental leasing opportunities for AMT, CCI and SBAC. CCI has the largest core market exposure, followed by AMT and SBAC; site selection depends on building coverage needs, and capacity still needs to be supplemented by new spectrum or denser co-location deployment. The three major carriers increasing network investment in the medium term could further boost tower rent, while long-term competition may compress industry investment. Citigroup's analyst team believes the deal is positive for SpaceX and towers, and will continue to disrupt telecom and cable operator valuations. The core change is that Starlink is establishing a nationwide mobile network through "satellite + macro base stations + small cells," seeking to directly manage customer relationships. The planned 800MHz spectrum acquisition is about 7MHz each for uplink and downlink, complementing EchoStar's 65MHz mid-band; currently Starlink still uses 10MHz of spectrum leased from T-Mobile. The FCC has approved 15,000 new 2GHz satellites and V3 backhaul bands, but if low-band is directly put on satellites, satellite design may need adjustment. Citi therefore expects the ground network to bear important coverage and capacity, with satellites supplementing markets such as rural areas, and further spectrum expansion still needed later. Citi emphasizes that capacity determines the addressable market. Based on satellite model calculations, the EchoStar deal, adding the Grain deal, and purchasing another 40MHz of Upper C-band would support about 17 million, 19 million and 28 million users, respectively; the ground-air integration model corresponds to about 19 million and 31 million users in the latter two scenarios, equivalent to 7% and 11% of the postpaid phone market, bringing SpaceX about $45.2 billion and $76 billion in scenario valuation gains, or about 2% and 3% of market value. The high scenario corresponds to about 13% market value risk for the three major carriers, about 17% for Charter and about 3% for Comcast. Carriers have already pulled back an average of about 17% from their year-to-date highs, and Citi believes the risk is partly priced in, expecting no material impact on the three major carriers' results at least before 2029. Over the next 6-18 months, longer device replacement cycles and low churn can improve profits; splitting tariffs, mobile and broadband bundling, and network investment constitute responses. Concerns that AI agents will package revenue and that spectrum spending will increase continue to weigh on valuations, and carriers are expected not to offer competitive MVNO cooperation terms in the short to medium term.