SpaceX pushes mobile service back to 2028
What happened
SpaceX's chief financial officer, Bret Johnsen, told Goldman Sachs's Communacopia conference on September 10 that direct-to-device mobile service will start in the first half of 2028. On its August 4 call, SpaceX said satellites would fly in 2027 with service starting by year-end. Johnsen also softened SpaceX's prior commitment to build its own ground network. He said the company is "keeping our options open" among its own towers, small cellular base stations and carrier partnerships. AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile executives each separately said in the same period that Starlink cannot compete without a real terrestrial network.
Read-across for SES
SpaceX's Starlink Direct-to-Cell is the scale rival to SES's own Elveo bet and the loudest voice in Brussels for opening the 2 GHz band to more entrants. A four-month slip and public hedging on ground infrastructure buys Elveo and AST SpaceMobile time to reach market first. It also undercuts SpaceX's own argument that direct-to-device supply is already abundant enough to open up SES's contested 2 GHz band.
As the brief filed it
[AGE: 4d] SpaceX's CFO pushed its direct-to-device mobile launch to the first half of 2028, a slip from the end-2027 target set on its August earnings call. Three major carriers separately doubted its ground-network plan the same week.