SpaceX Wants 80,000 Cell Sites

I led Verizon's Next Step telecommunications faculty group in New England, which trained telecommunications technicians. A couple years ago, as a consultant, I co-wrote curriculum for Verizon's Skill Forward program. Every site a telecom technician maintains needs the same three things: a place to stand, power, and a path back to the network. The list never changes.

On October 22, Bloomberg reported that SpaceX is in talks to access more than 80,000 cell sites as it works toward becoming the fourth major US wireless carrier. The sources are unnamed. Crown Castle is one of the tower owners in the discussions. CEO Chris Hillabrant did not confirm specifics and said, "You can assume that we're talking to all parties." Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile each fell more than 3% in extended trading Thursday. Musk described the goal on the earnings call as "broad-based connectivity anywhere that SpaceX and Starlink are allowed to operate."

This follows the spectrum deal. On October 8, SpaceX agreed to buy Grain Management's nationwide 800 MHz portfolio. Low-band signals pass through walls better than high-band signals, and I covered that in Walls Are the Hard Part of Phone Service From Space.

T-Mobile CTO John Saw argued that a network needs more than spectrum. A satellite link has about 50 dB more path loss than a cell site 1 km away, and one satellite beam covers an area that hundreds of terrestrial sectors serve. Sites supply the shorter path and the capacity. My Spectrum Still Needs a Network post works through his numbers.

Free-space path loss at 2 GHz, satellite versus cell site. Not to scale.

Sites also mean work. Each one needs installation, power, backhaul, and technicians for upkeep. Wireless Estimator reports that SpaceX has described small radios beside Starlink dishes on rooftops, so the work includes rooftop installs as well as towers. Technicians with RF, power, and fiber skills fit that work.

Telecom techs will recognize the plan. A place to stand, power, and a path back to the network. Eighty thousand sites need eighty thousand sets of those three things.