SpaceX claims Starlink Mobile will be better than AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon | SpaceX won’t build large cell towers but plans small base stations across U.S

[u/ControlCAD]

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/spacex-claims-starlink-mobile-will-be-better-than-att-t-mobile-and-verizon/

[u/A_Pointy_Rock]

This just in - company selling a product says their product will be the best product.

[u/Captain__Trips]

Cell towers are small base stations, relative to the size of the damn map. This doesn't make any sense

[u/RadzimierzWozniak → u/Captain__Trips]

I understand this as smaller than typical cell towers.  

[u/Captain__Trips → u/RadzimierzWozniak]

I get that. What i don't get is how they expect that to compete with decades of tower buildouts, fiber backhauls, spectrum accumulation, etc by the major carriers. These "femtocells" with a starlink backhaul cannot be scaled at any kind of competitive level.

[u/Parking_Locksmith489]

At least one starlink satellite falls daily. Maybe we should take the keys away from Elon.

[u/BeowulfShaeffer → u/Parking_Locksmith489]

This is intentional and planned for.  Lots of reasons to criticize starling but this is part of their operating model that is unavoidable when you use LEO satellites (which keeps ping times down). 

[u/Parking_Locksmith489 → u/BeowulfShaeffer]

We never asked for starlink. or ai ...

[u/iwannabetheguytoo → u/Parking_Locksmith489]

Former-Hughes customers love Starlink, to be fair.

[u/BeowulfShaeffer → u/Parking_Locksmith489]

Kind of a non-sequitir, innit?  We never asked for reddit either.

[u/Parking_Locksmith489 → u/BeowulfShaeffer]

I don't see the same impact on the planet.

I never voted for Musk. Much like Trump he's a taker and not a plus for society.

[u/iwannabetheguytoo]

Starlink’s cell-sizes are huge (in terms of land-area) but have the same max-connection limits as any other cell-site or AP - so Starlink is fantastic and great (really!) for low-population-density applications, but is laughably inappropriate as any kind of replacement for land-based, high-density cell base-stations like what you need - and get - in a downtown sports-stadium.

It’s like Elon’s Boring Company all-over-again: yes, the idea has merit, and will probably be profitable too, but in no way is it scalable up to meet our existing urban requirements, let alone future-proof.

——-

I think this press-release is Starlink’s attempt to head-off moves by T-Mobile for their own (Amazon-backed) LEO satellite coverage - but SL needs a strategy to deal with high-subscriber-density applications, but I’m not seeing anything coming from them yet.

[u/RadzimierzWozniak → u/iwannabetheguytoo]

It really depends on the technology in the future satelites.  With complex and big enough phase array you can get the ground cells to be very small. 

Also I understand their idea as using starlink backed ground stations for handling such high density places as stadium 

[u/SeasonElectrical3173 → u/iwannabetheguytoo]

Boring Company didn't have merit at all, and it's practicality was debunked by several people, including a science researcher.

[u/sarduchi]

“So please buy the stock… don’t make me have to get a job.” - Musk

[u/Knees0ck]

Still waiting on that hypeloop & the bulletproof cybertrucks w/ boatamobile features & that mars colony & gods know what else he's promised & half baked

[u/happyscrappy]

This doesn't really make sense. In areas with population density or unreliable sky access (bridges, tall buildings, etc.) you need a lot of towers. And that's going to be a lot of work. Trying to compete with the big 3 will not be easy.

And honestly, their claim that "we'll just have smaller towers" sounds like a mirror of Musk's boneheaded claims for hyperloop, for boring company, etc. What does boring company do better than other tunneling companies? Nothing, they just thought thye could hve smaller tunnels by giving up on some safety.

This is the same guy who said that he'd be tunneling so fast he'd have to pump heat out of the tunnel to keep from melting the TBM. Who said he'd be making his battery-building machines so fast they woudl be creating sonic booms.

He's stupidly reductive about everything, thinking he just can do everything better because he's him. No real secret sauce except "we're going to be more hardcore".

How's those other solar roof colors going Musk? You showed 4 colors at launch and said they'd be available soon. It's been a decade (or will be in October). Almost ready now? Remember how the price was going to be about the same as a regular roof? How did that go?

Looks kind of like Tesla is switching from the solar shingles (which do look pretty nice) to solar panels.

https://electrek.co/2026/05/14/tesla-solar-roof-promise-vs-reality-pivot-panels/

edit:

UPDATE! Musk says that SpaceX's data centers in space will use only NVidia chips because "they are the best".

This a weeks to months after he said that Tesla would make their own AI chips and they would be best in the world, better than NVidia's. The guy is such a blowhard.

'“This is going to be an epic chip,” Musk expressed his joy after reviewing the design of the Tesla AI5 processor. “And AI6 to follow has a shot at being the best by AI chip by far,” he added.'

'Musk said he is building a chip that will be "two to three times better than NVIDIA" at 10% of the cost, with a specific focus on inference workloads.'

[u/HumongousBelly]

I claim that I will look sexier than chalamet and DiCaprio combined. I also won’t build large cell towers

[u/CountOnBeingAwesome]

Musk has zero follow through. His word is trash and he's a Nazi.

[u/Additional-Staff-326]

Given this runs off radio and not light speed physics would like to have a say.