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On the road to the IPO, Musk sold investors on future plans to set up a data center in space and build a colony on Mars. Goldman analysts predicted a 100-fold increase in its AI revenue to $322 billion by 2030.
While describing Starlink expansion as another key pillar of its IPO expansion, SpaceX has never publicly confirmed that it plans to launch a mobile service.
There have been months of controversy over SpaceX’s future plans after it paid $17 billion to rival EchoStar for wireless licenses to power its Starlink network last September. Many experts believe that the agreement is laying the groundwork for the sale of goods.
Compared to what the FT saw, SpaceX said that while it hoped that the Starlink Mobile service would “be of great help to customers in rural areas exposed to terrestrial networks,” its long-term ambitions appeared broader.
As its operations improve and the satellite network expands, the prospectus shows that the company will “compete to be the way to connect our customers regardless of their location, whether rural, urban or urban.”
The launch of Starlink’s mobile shopping service will also support the company’s online strategy, which served 10.3 million customers worldwide as of March.
However, the plans were met with fear by experts who warned that the idea could be a gamble to get better money from Starlink’s telecommunications partners and warned of the billions of dollars in construction costs and radio infrastructure needed to roll out the mobile network.
New Street Research estimates that the three US network operators have about 1,020MHz of spectrum, while SpaceX has only 65MHz.
David Barden, a partner at New Street Research, said that developing “wireless networks in crowded markets around the world can be very difficult.”
“(But) as a starting point to discuss the best way to share revenue with mobile networks? It makes sense,” he added.
Additional reporting by Ryan McMorrow in San Francisco
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