SpaceX has a deal to purchase nationwide low-band spectrum licenses for a planned terrestrial mobile network that would complement the space-based Starlink cellular service. SpaceX will buy up to 14 megahertz of spectrum in the 800 MHz band from investment firm Grain Management, which bought the spectrum rights from T-Mobile earlier this year. T-Mobile had obtained the spectrum when it bought Sprint in 2020 and was required to sell the licenses under a merger condition imposed by the US government.
SpaceX this week also received US approval to launch 15,000 satellites for an upgraded version of its mobile service that it says will be far more powerful than the current offering. The 800 MHz spectrum licenses cover “approximately 100 percent of the US population,” the FCC said in a July 2026 order approving Grain’s purchase of the T-Mobile licenses. While the licenses are nationwide, it’s not a huge amount of spectrum.
It ranges from 4.85 megahertz to 14 megahertz depending on the county. SpaceX’s low-band purchase is in addition to 65 MHz of nationwide mid-band spectrum licenses it is buying from EchoStar. The Federal Communications Commission approved that $17 billion purchase in May 2026.
Critically, most existing mobile devices already support this underused band,” SpaceX said. SpaceX’s spectrum deal is likely to be approved by the FCC, but it could face opposition from small carriers. The Rural Wireless Association opposed EchoStar’s spectrum sales to AT&T and SpaceX, saying the deals “continue the troubling pattern of spectrum aggregation that disadvantages rural wireless providers.” Across all carriers in the US, there is about 1.1 GHz of licensed spectrum allocated to mobile operators, with the big three holding dominant spectrum portfolios.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
