SpaceX plans an $8 billion 800 MHz buy to expand Starlink Mobile

The purchase covers 800 MHz licenses worth as much as 14 megahertz of paired airwaves. Spectrum is the range of radio frequencies wireless services use, and “paired” means one slice for sending and one for receiving, so phones and satellites can talk both ways.

The licenses cover about 100 percent of the US population, but it’s not a huge chunk of airwaves. Depending on the county, SpaceX would get between 4.85 and 14 megahertz. The FCC says the band can be used for service from towers on the ground, from satellites, or both.

These airwaves have a long history. They once belonged to Sprint, passed to T-Mobile when it bought Sprint in 2020, and had to be sold under a condition the government set for that merger. Grain bought them from T-Mobile this year. The roughly $8 billion price comes from media reports, and the companies’ official announcements didn’t disclose financial terms.

Low-band signals like 800 MHz travel farther and slip through obstacles much better than higher frequencies. Concrete walls, thick trees and hilly ground block the higher-frequency beams Starlink uses today, which is why satellite texting often only works outside with a clear view of the sky.

SpaceX says the new band will act as a coverage layer, so its signal can reach phones inside homes and offices. Its global 2 GHz mid-band spectrum would handle capacity, meaning faster speeds for more people at once. And SpaceX points out that most phones already support this underused 800 MHz band, so you likely wouldn’t need a new device.

This isn’t SpaceX’s first spectrum purchase. It is also buying 65 MHz of nationwide mid-band licenses from EchoStar, a $17 billion deal the FCC approved in May 2026, plus a follow-on $2.6 billion agreement for more EchoStar airwaves.

We announced an agreement to acquire a nationwide low-band spectrum license portfolio that will pave the way for @Starlink to become a major mobile carrier in the US.

With this new spectrum and our Gen2 constellation, Starlink Mobile can ensure Americans have access to… pic.twitter.com/uVktZ0g3tu

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 8, 2026

The spectrum deal landed days after the FCC cleared SpaceX to launch 15,000 next-generation satellites for direct-to-device service. That means they can send calls, texts and data straight from space to ordinary phones on the ground, with no special antenna.

SpaceX says the new satellites will offer more than 100 times the bandwidth of its current ones. Combined with the 800 MHz band and ground-based radios and antennas, the plan is a hybrid network: satellites for coverage everywhere, towers where they are needed. SpaceX says it plans to speed up deployment next year.

For now, nothing changes. You can’t sign up for Starlink Mobile as your main carrier, and SpaceX hasn’t announced pricing or plans. Today’s Starlink phone service works through partner carriers like T-Mobile and supplements their coverage rather than replacing it.

If everything goes SpaceX’s way, here is what could change:

• Fewer dead zones. Rural areas, national parks and stretches of highway without towers are where satellite service helps most.
• Indoor coverage. The 800 MHz band is meant to keep you connected inside buildings, the big gap in satellite service today.
• A new competitor. A fourth national carrier could push AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile on price and coverage. Shares of all three fell after the announcement.

Not everyone is convinced. Telecom analyst Tim Farrar said the amount of spectrum is still very limited and that reliable indoor coverage in cities would require SpaceX to build towers on the ground. T-Mobile’s chief financial officer, Peter Osvaldik, said last month that satellite-to-cell is not a competitive threat, arguing that physics drains the signal before it reaches your phone.

The deal needs approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which has not set a timeline, and it also faces review by the US Department of Justice. Regulators will weigh whether one company is gathering too much spectrum and how satellite and ground signals avoid interfering with each other.

Approval looks likely, but small carriers could object. The Rural Wireless Association opposed SpaceX’s earlier EchoStar purchase, warning that piling up spectrum hurts rural providers. Across all US carriers, there is about 1.1 GHz of licensed mobile spectrum, and the big three hold most of it.

Even after approval, SpaceX must build ground equipment at scale and put the new band into its satellites. The FCC is also considering a separate 25 MHz spectrum auction for direct-to-device services, which will shape how crowded this market gets.