“The reality is that they’re coming to the game very late after this industry has been established.”
That is AT&T’s CEO describing a company that just paid Echostar $17 billion for spectrum and is lining up for the 2027 C-band auction. AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile spent $110 billion on low-band over a decade and none of that buys a satellite constellation. Starlink mobile is on track for $15 billion this year against an addressable market SpaceX pitched investors at $740 billion. The big three lost 4 percent on the day the story ran, so their own shareholders are not buying the dismissal.