Verizon’s CEO is brushing off SpaceX’s bid to become a US mobile carrier, arguing Elon Musk’s company will need four to six years to build out its network, which he says won’t even stand out.
“It will basically look and feel like every other network. There’s no magic wand. There’s no secret sauce. There’s no shortcut,” Dan Schulman said in an earnings call this morning. “There’s no radically lower structural cost advantage.”
SpaceX is working to become the US’s fourth major mobile carrier via Starlink Mobile. Last week, Bloomberg reported that it wants to secure at least 80,000 cell sites across the country.
When questioned about those plans, Schulman said Verizon is treating SpaceX’s carrier ambitions seriously. But he says SpaceX will need to spend hundreds of billions on the effort.
“Assuming that’s the case and assuming they try to go do that, it’s going to take a minimum of four to six years to fully build that out,” Schulman said. “It’s going to cost hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars. I assume somewhere between $300 billion and half a trillion over the next seven or eight years.”
He added: “And then they need to build retail customer service, back-office systems, etcetera. And all of that gets them basically the same network, and same capabilities, and same cost structure as what we have today.”
Verizon CEO Dan Schulman (Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In another critical remark, Verizon’s CEO said the resulting network won’t be enough for SpaceX to crack the top four rankings in the US mobile carrier business. That’s because Verizon also powers the networks for Spectrum Mobile and Xfinity Mobile, two major US MVNOs.
“And then sometime over the next four to six years, [SpaceX has] the possibility of becoming the sixth, not the fourth, the sixth competitor in the market. And frankly, at that point, I welcome the opportunity to compete against them,” Schulman said. “It’s very hard to throw a punch against something that doesn’t exist. But once they come into the market, we will be ferociously competitive.”
Schulman also shot down partnering with SpaceX via an MVNO agreement, which would enable it to lease access to Verizon’s ground-based cellular network. “I will say, and I’ll repeat it again, that there are no backdoors to any of our MVNO agreements. And I see absolutely no benefit whatsoever to extending an MVNO deal to any satellite provider,” he said.
Schulman added that SpaceX’s mobile carrier strategy is already apparent, citing industry chatter. “There are no secrets in the market, we know exactly what they’re going to do,” he said. “We know who they’re talking to on towers. We know who they’re talking to to put terrestrial equipment in place. Inside the industry, we know exactly what they’re thinking about doing it.”
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(Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
But Verizon’s CEO argued that SpaceX has some serious catching up to do. “I mean four to five years from now, we will be two to three generations better than where we are today,” he said.
Schulman isn’t alone in questioning the viability of SpaceX’s carrier ambitions. T-Mobile executives and some industry analysts have made similar criticisms, pointing to the high costs of building and maintaining a carrier network. Still, the Federal Communications Commission has been creating a regulatory path for SpaceX to become a major carrier, which it expects to benefit consumers by increasing market competition.
SpaceX also plans to use a combination of next-generation satellites, cell towers, and cost-effective femtocells to create nationwide coverage, including rural and remote areas, which could help Starlink Mobile stand out from other carriers. The company plans on turning on the service in early 2028. In the meantime, SpaceX still needs to launch the satellites and push the smartphone industry to adopt the compatible modem chips for the initial commercial service.
“We probably should do a longer presentation on the game plan for Starlink connectivity, and why we think it’ll ultimately be a business that generates several hundred billions of dollars in revenue a year,” Musk said in SpaceX’s earnings call last week.
About Our Expert
Michael Kan
Principal Reporter
Experience
I’ve been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I’m currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.
Since 2020, I’ve covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I’ve combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink’s cellular service.
I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.
I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I’m now following how the AI-driven memory shortage is impacting the entire consumer electronics market. I’m always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.
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