- The D2D JV with AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon leaves a lot of questions unanswered
- SpaceX’s response on X.com suggests they’re ready to fight
- T-Mobile’s D2D exclusivity agreement with Starlink is another aspect
What’s clear from Thursday’s direct-to-device (D2D) joint venture announcement by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon is: not much. It certainly raises more questions than it answers.
For example: Is this JV real if there’s no definitive agreement yet? How will SpaceX respond? Will the Department of Justice (DoJ) allow it? When does T-Mobile’s exclusivity agreement with SpaceX/Starlink expire? And how big is the D2D market going to be once Amazon Leo, AST SpaceMobile and others join Starlink?
As for how SpaceX reacts, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and VP of Satellite Policy David Goldman weighed in on social media, signaling their intent to fight. For instance, Goldman cited a LightShed blog saying, "The bigger question is whether the DOJ even allows it...Three high-margin competitors moving in parallel just as a new rival prepares to enter is the kind of pattern that raises real collusion concerns." Check out their posts here. (And be sure to read the comments on who’s Goliath and who’s David in all of this.)
It's also interesting that the Big 3 are now being referred to as "rivals" to SpaceX.
Is it real?
There’s no timetable for a definitive agreement but papers were signed with the intention to form one, according to a research note by analysts at New Street Research (NSR), who spoke with the carriers. (AT&T and Verizon declined to comment further to Fierce; see T-Mobile's mostly non-response below.)
As to why the timing happened this week – two days after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved EchoStar’s spectrum sales to AT&T and SpaceX – the analysts surmised there was a leak or a fear of a leak and that in order to control the “narrative,” the group had to “circle the wagons, sign documents and take control.”
LightShed Partners analysts Walter Piecyk and Joe Galone offer a different take. They point out that a press release does not equate to a deal, and the fact that there is no definitive agreement is the tell.
“You announce an agreement in principle when the point is the announcement, not the deal,” they wrote in their blog that was cited by SpaceX on X (registration required). “The timing, weeks ahead of the SpaceX roadshow, was the point. The operators will argue that SpaceX can access this undefined JV spectrum, but we doubt they have any interest.”
The bigger question, according to LightShed, is whether the DoJ allows it. “These same three operators have each publicly refused SpaceX an MVNO, the fastest path for a new entrant to reach customers. Now they are pooling scarce spectrum together, just before SpaceX goes public,” they wrote.
Everybody has smart lawyers
Armand Musey, president and founder of Summit Ridge Group, said the mobile operators’ attorneys are no doubt structuring the JV in such a way that allegations of collusion are not going to make the JV unworkable.
“Their attorneys are not idiots,” he told Fierce. “I’m sure they’re finding some way to structure it so that they’re not going to … trip on the ability to be accused of collusion.”
NSR: Odds favor JV, but …
NSR’s team, including policy analyst Blair Levin, said the Big 3 can argue they’re increasing competition in the satellite market and providing a way to build out in rural areas that otherwise would not get adequate terrestrial coverage.
“We think the odds favor that the DoJ Antitrust Department will agree with the efficiency argument and not challenge the JV, unless SpaceX/Starlink decides to use its influence to push a serious investigation, in which case we think there will be a serious investigation,” they wrote.
Levin also flagged one important fact: A “certain CEO” – Musk – was on President Trump’s plane to the China summit, and the mobile network operators had no representatives on that trip. So, interpret that as you may.
On SpaceX/Starlink taking over
As for the popular theme (fear or hope, depending on your perspective) that SpaceX/Starlink will take over the terrestrial mobile industry if it gets an MVNO deal, Musey pointed out that the history of MVNOs in the U.S. is pretty bad. Many of them have tried and failed to make a go of it (though they weren't backed by Musk.)
“You don’t last very long without having your own facilities in this sector because pricing changes so quickly that any agreement you have three years, five years, 10 years down the road doesn't look very attractive,” he said.
That said, “I don’t know that Starlink can really take over the mobile sector with an MVNO agreement. They would have to build out, which would be hugely expensive. I’m not sure they're prepared to do that,” Musey said. “Distribution is expensive. Just ramping up all the things that the Big 3 have, that’s massively expensive and time consuming.”
Is T-Mobile driving this?
One intriguing but unconfirmed theory is the JV was instigated by T-Mobile. The timing of the JV suggests that is the case, said Tim Farrar, principal at TMF Associates. (Again, T-Mobile did not respond to Fierce’s questions on this and other related topics.)
Update: T-Mobile didn’t comment specifically on that but sent the following statement to Fierce after this story first published.
“This partnership is about making it easier than ever for satellite operators to get innovative products to customers, and for the JV to pool spectrum and IP to help create a customer experience that is reliable, resilient and easy for partners to build on,” T-Mobile stated. “We are focused right now on operating a great service and are pleased with our current partnership with Starlink.”
Clearly, they’re emphasizing their satisfaction with Starlink. Beyond that, we didn’t learn a whole lot more.
Farrar noted that T-Mobile is the only one of the three that’s offering a commercial D2D service with a low Earth operator (LEO) and it appears its exclusivity deal with Starlink expires this summer.
“There’s been something of a change in attitude on T-Mobile’s part towards D2D over the last year,” he told Fierce, noting the departure of former CEO Mike Sievert and arrival of CEO Srini Gopalan, who has close ties with parent Deutsche Telekom.
That was reinforced by some of Gopalan’s comments during T-Mobile’s Q1 2026 earnings call. “Our partnership with SpaceX is very strong. We’ve worked closely with them to really invent an entire category, and that’s been putting an end to dead zones. We’re pleased with that,” Gopalan told analysts.
But he added that most of the usage they’re seeing is in national parks. “If anything, courtesy of the great network that Dr. [John] Saw has built, we're seeing a lot less usage than we were originally thinking,” Gopalan said. “It's a great complementary product.”
Based on a report by The Information (registration required), T-Mobile is paying $100 million to SpaceX over multiple years contingent on hitting certain milestones. “One assumes that SpaceX wants a larger commitment going forward,” but T-Mobile presumably doesn’t want to commit larger dollar amounts, given it hasn’t seen the benefits it might have anticipated, including in market share, Farrar said.
It’s also not clear what happens to the PCS G-block spectrum that T-Mobile and Starlink have been using to offer the T-Satellite service.
“We'll have to see what happens to that relationship going forward,” said Farrar, who later pointed to SpaceX’s reaction on X.
Indeed.
This story has been updated with a statement from T-Mobile.