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  "description": "A MoffettNathanson report said real competition with terrestrial mobile carriers was unlikely",
  "path": "/spacex-buoyed-by-launch-dominance-but-starlink-mobiles-future-unclear-analysts-say/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-07-07T17:38:27.000Z",
  "site": "https://broadbandbreakfast.com",
  "tags": [
    "Learn about America250 / Telecom150"
  ],
  "textContent": "WASHINGTON, July 7, 2026 – SpaceX might have included some fanciful projections in its IPO filing, but the company’s rocket launch capacity really is without equal, according to analysts.\n\n“SpaceX is, first and foremost, a rocket manufacturing and launch company,” MoffettNathanson analysts wrote in a Tuesday investor report. “And the company has fashioned a virtual monopoly in the rocket segment of the business.”\n\nLearn about America250 / Telecom150\n\n\n                            Learn about America250 / Telecom150\n                        \n\nThe company’s 165 orbital launches last year accounted for 53 percent of all such launches in the world, the report noted, and nearly 70 percent of the mass launched into orbit. SpaceX is still controlled by **Elon Musk** , who controls much of its voting power after its record-breaking IPO.\n\n“Stacked against SpaceX are not competing companies, but whole sovereign nations,” the analysts wrote, “and _still_ SpaceX tops them all. _Combined_.”\n\nThat’s largely thanks to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket’s reusable booster, they wrote, which makes repeated launches much cheaper. The company has plans for its Starship rocket to be completely reusable, which would drive costs down even more.\n\nMoffettNathanson estimated that would come to fruition in “mid-2027 at the earliest,” as opposed to company projections of later this year. The report was authored by **Craig Moffett** , a co-founder of the research firm, and analysts **Julie Zhu** and **Nick Del Deo**.\n\nThe company operates a massive 10,000-satellite constellation to support its Starlink broadband service. That both aided the development of Falcon 9 and benefitted from the in-house launch capacity, the analysts wrote.\n\nThey compared SpaceX to satellite broadband provider Amazon Leo and rocket launcher Blue Origin. The former needed a Federal Communications Commission waiver because it was unable to secure launch capacity for its nascent constellation, and the latter is “by most estimates a decade or more behind” on reusable rockets.\n\nSpaceX “is, in short, a bet on any and all things made possible by a virtual lock on rocket manufacturing and launch,” the analysts wrote.\n\n### _Direct-to-device_\n\nSpaceX has big plans for its direct-to-device mobile service. It’s buying $19.6 billion worth of spectrum from EchoStar to support the service, and has asked the FCC for permission to launch another 15,000 satellites for direct-to-device.\n\nIt also treated mobile as a source of growth going forward in its IPO filing.\n\n“For that to happen, Starlink cannot remain a supplement to terrestrial wireless targeting remote rural areas; that opportunity is not nearly large enough. It will instead have to become a replacement for terrestrial wireless,” the analysts wrote. “We are skeptics.”\n\nSatellite service alone is extremely unlikely to be competitive with terrestrial mobile service, they wrote, because of the massive distances involved.\n\nThe only way for SpaceX to gain market share would be to partner with a carrier through a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) deal, they argued.\n\nEach of the mobile carriers’ CEOs have shot down the idea though; the companies also said earlier this year they were forming a direct-to-device-focused joint venture that analysts saw as a united front against a SpaceX MVNO.\n\nVerizon gave Comcast and Charter MVNOs, and the cable giants have emerged as legitimate competitors for mobile customers. The carriers are not likely to be convinced to let another competitor into the fold, the analysts wrote.\n\nThere have been reports recently that SpaceX was developing a mobile handset and talking with Charter about a mobile partnership, both interpreted as more signs of the satellite operator’s mobile ambitions.\n\nThe most realistic way to convince a carrier to grant an MVNO might be to assemble valuable spectrum assets that SpaceX could offer as part of the deal, according to MoffettNathanson. The company’s nationwide spectrum purchase from EchoStar makes the most sense as a bargaining chip to this end, they argued, since the airwaves can only really be used in rural areas with no superior terrestrial coverage.\n\nSpaceX “will continue to negotiate, cajole, and, if necessary, coerce, in an effort to secure an MVNO agreement with one of the Big Three,” they wrote. “It is clear, however, that the Big Three fully understand the clear and present danger that would be posed by Starlink’s market entry as another Cable-like hybrid MNO/MVNO.”\n\nLightShed Partners analysts speculated last week that SpaceX might buy up EchoStar’s now-defunct mobile network as part of its wireless subsidiary’s bankruptcy proceeding. That would avoid the hundreds of billions in costs and decades of permitting and construction that would be required to actually build a mobile network.\n\n“It might be hard for SpaceX to pass up cheap radio assets with which it could negotiate favorable leases,” LightShed analysts **Walter Piecyk** and **Joe Galone** wrote.",
  "title": "SpaceX Buoyed by Launch Dominance, but Starlink Mobile’s Future Unclear, Analysts Say",
  "updatedAt": "2026-07-24T21:47:44.866Z"
}