SpaceX与T-Mobile就星链直连手机续约价格激烈博弈

06.26.26 Fever pitch… Since the SpaceX IPO earlier this month, speculation about SpaceX entering the mobile market has reached fever pitch, most recently in an FT article that cites comments made by Gwynne Shotwell to investors during the IPO roadshow. And of course we’ll hear imminently about the results of FCC Auction 113, where SpaceX is one of the bidders, and some analysts have been suggesting that SpaceX will buy much or all of the $3.5B in spectrum that was sold, not just the two unpaired licenses that SpaceX definitely need for their Band 70 offering (and which only sold for $10.5M). But what is not being talked about is the context of a knife fight behind the scenes between SpaceX and T-Mobile over what T-Mobile will pay for the T-Satellite service after exclusivity expires next month. Because SpaceX was desperate to secure a launch partner and pre-empt Apple’s announcement with Globalstar back in August 2022, the current contract is reportedly only valued at “about $100M” in total since 2022, which means T-Mobile is likely only paying a few million dollars per month for the service. That’s only of order $1-$2 per monthly active user, when less than 10% of T-Mobile customers with T-Satellite included in their plan make use of the service in a given month. Or put another way, about $0.10 per month for each customer with access to the service. But late last year, when SpaceX looked like it was going to come up short of Elon Musk’s 2025 projection of $15.5B in revenues, it seems the company booked an incremental $632M in (deferred) Starlink Mobile revenues so SpaceX would come close to Musk’s target (SpaceX’s actual reported revenue last year, excluding xAI, was $15.473B). That’s far above the current runrate reported for Starlink Mobile of $85M in 2026Q1. So now, in order to show growth in 2026, SpaceX needs vastly increased revenues from T-Mobile (5-10 times the current level), when (based on the 2026Q1 runrate) T-Mobile is seemingly paying much less than SpaceX’s other MNO partners. As an example, I understand Rogers in Canada has suggested it might end up paying SpaceX up to CAD100M per year in a market which is about one tenth the size of the US. And we’ve seen numbers being floated like $500M per year for Starlink Mobile to provide service in Iran. What is clear is that T-Mobile does not believe the service is worth that much, which is why they are being so vocal about how “most of the usage we’re seeing is in national parks” and “we’re seeing …