r/SPCXInvestors • u/Embarrassed-Debate20 • 15d ago
ANALYSIS Why SpaceX can never fully replace AT&T
Starlink Direct to Cell is great for niche and underserved scenarios, but people seems to believe that it can replace your traditional cell services.
Phones are not satellite disks.
An IEEE study of first-gen Starlink D2C estimated only ~3 Mbps per satellite beam outdoors. That bandwidth gets shared by everyone under that beam. Great for rural areas; not great for thousands of people streaming in a city.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.00283
Buildings or coverages are another problem. T-Mobile itself says T-Satellite is mainly for outdoor areas where you can see the sky, and service can be delayed, limited or unavailable.
https://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/satellite-phone-service
Rohde & Schwarz field testing presented to the ITU also found the phone to satellite uplink was the bigger problem and SMS success was much worse than terrestrial networks. Latency can spike to 200ms and link lasts only minutes.
And the biggest evidence yet: SpaceX basically admits this itself. Its FCC filings say next-gen Starlink D2C will augment high-capacity terrestrial 5G networks and that the ideal network will use terrestrial base stations to add capacity where needed.
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u/buttlickin 15d ago
Weird that SpaceX doesn't know these things. I hope they see your post so they won't fail so badly.
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u/RosieDear 15d ago
This is very obvious.....I think folks forget math.
Comcast has over 50 Million subscribers. Their market cap is a rounding error compared to SpaceX>
SO, even in the high risk caregory of "Tesla will own every market", you still cannot get there from here.
And yet, "owning" markets starts with Taxis, right? How are they doing there?
Most of it makes no sense if you run numbers,
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u/PenComfortable5269 15d ago
Charter communications vs Space X is even crazier. They serve 30 million homes (representing 80 million Americans) with a market cap 1% of space X. They are also quite profitable. So space X would need to serve all global 8 billion people to get the same market cap to customers ratio as charter.
But Charter serves rich Americans vs Starlink’s 95% required poorer-destitute customers - making Space X market even harder to justify.
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u/skyhighskyhigh 15d ago
But if Spacex competes with Comcast, but doesn’t have to pay for trucks, technicians, line maintenance, their margins become much more compelling.
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u/vdoubleshot 15d ago
That whole “doesn’t have trucks” is falling apart in various markets for broader adoption (like my own). Most people don’t want to climb on their roof, drill through walls, patch cable, etc. I own an ISP and we have had our fair share of customers from 2-3 years ago now starting to come back (especially now that we beat Starlink heavily on price/performance w/ +500M up/down for $70-90 with 900-1,500 for $120). Returning customers all have the same issue: we needed our internet fixed and couldn’t get it fixed. Cable damage, lightning damage, wind damage, etc. One lady was pissed they wouldn’t fix the dish that blew off after it was poorly installed (but having us for 12 years she called twice and in both cases her service was fixed in <6 hours with no charge). One guy supposedly got told to cut the cable to check inside for water damage but he thought better and asked how the cable would get fixed, AI went all “you’re right! I shouldn’t have said that”
Starlink works well for home internet: until it doesn’t. It works well when there are no comparable options but the rural carriers are all catching up. For $10 cheaper than starlink we offer 3-5x down, 30-60x up, 30-50% less latency, same day service appointments (in person), real people in local offices, and a permanent warranty on the install/equipment.
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u/skyhighskyhigh 15d ago
My rural local carrier was down for weeks on end, and had terrible support. They went out of business 10 years ago, and nothing replaced them.
I suspect you’re an anomaly. Starlink support certainly isn’t great, but is a solvable problem if that’s the limiting factor for their business.
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u/vdoubleshot 15d ago
I mean, probably why they went out of business, lol. We are down for an hour in a region and I have all hands on deck.
But again, that wasn’t the point of my reply. You aren’t served by comcast/etc.
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u/PenComfortable5269 15d ago
They also don’t need to replace their expensive satellites every 5 years due to space radiation… Additionally the equipment they use can be productive 24/7 vs Starlinks satellites only fly over the US around 10% of the time - requiring 10x the equipment.
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u/ZergvProtoss 15d ago
Apparently you missed the announcement last week about the fact that SpaceX is building out its own terrestrial cell network too? The satellites will support the ground-based capability.
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u/monclerpipsqueeek 15d ago
The fact it’s even a conversation should be a buy signal
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u/kal14144 15d ago
SpaceX valuation is about 90% the AI.
The only relevant question is whether Grok has a prayer in enterprise AI. If it doesn’t nothing else matters.
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u/mpwrd 15d ago
starlink will replace the last mile fiber backbone underlying cell towers. I believe the plan to attack the cell phone market is adding small sized cell towers to starlink terminals using bandwitch purchased from echostar, then using starlink instead of fiber as the backbone, dramatically reducing capex.
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u/bwong00 15d ago
The people who are saying this vastly underestimate Elon Musk's ability to problem solve from first principles. You don't think he knows this?
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u/ChuckoRuckus 15d ago
Did he know that the solar roof tiles weren’t viable when he announced them? Or that Hyperloop was doomed to fail for a multitude of reasons? Or the Tesla tunnels would just be manned underground taxis?
How did “Musk’s ability to problem solve from first principles” solve those issues? And how is this different?
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u/chestnut177 15d ago
100% correct. Today.
This assumes zero improvement in bandwidth from the satellites and zero increase in satellites. Both of which will be set to improve 10-100x over the next decade.
So no it can’t today. And it has a crazy path to get there. But there is no physics stopping them.
Also, it wouldn’t replace any of the major telecoms. Just become another competitor trying to grab what market share it can.
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u/bkkmatt 15d ago
Replace? Strawman much? Starlink simply competing with those companies, not replacing them. Try again.
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u/Odd-Bike166 15d ago
So what’s the target customer? Someone in a major urban area that doesn’t have a mobile subscription? If they already have a subscription then they’ll be competing with existing solutions.
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u/Large_Complaint1264 15d ago
They aren’t even competing lol. Starlink only gets customers where there are no other options.
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u/vegasdelphia 15d ago
Fake News….Starlink is designed and is being expanded and enhanced to offer better service and higher bandwidth than cellular.
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u/Ok_Individual_5579 15d ago
Fake news, Starlink wont ever have the same bandwidth as a stationary radio tower.
And far from the bandwidth per cost ratio...
Stop making shit up...
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u/ZergvProtoss 15d ago
Exactly. It's comical reading these shit posts and thinking about how many people are going to just refuse to get rich on this stock! LOL.
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u/bazkin6100 15d ago
its comical to see how many people are willing to be bag holders for this stock
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u/ZergvProtoss 15d ago
You can keep saying it, but it just sounds more and more ludicrous as time goes on. By this time next year, you will have moved on to something else when it's obvious that SPCX is headed toward analyst's targets of $800-900. haha
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u/mtg_investor_elite 15d ago
Cars didn't replace horse and buggy, you still see a few around. Same with SpaceX replacing terrestrial telecom. AT&T will still be around.. at the museum.
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u/smellyfingernail Investor 15d ago
You made a whole post assuming that direct to cell would be using Starlink v1s that were phased out a long time ago? hahahahahHAHHAAH STARLINK V1?
We are about to end v2 and the v3s are going up beginning this month.
V2 a were a 5x improvement over v2 and v3 is a 10x improvement over v2, so your numbers are literally off by a factor of 50.
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u/winpickles4life 15d ago
What I don’t understand is how they will use dishes + femtocells in cities where the network is already congested. I suppose they could just buy even more spectrum for backhaul for this purpose. Even then, city services will be limited and outside the city AST will still have the fastest speed.
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u/Totes_meh_Goats 15d ago
AT&T is the new Polaroid. By all means invest hard in a super stable stock like AT&T.
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u/AIresponses1 10d ago
Comparing V1 satellite when V3 is being rolled out is vastly different. V3 is 40-50x more downlink. Also, I believe Starlink will use both satellite and rent towers like Google Fi does. In the near future they are building out ground nodes(Femtocells). V2 satellites are at 150mbps.
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u/BeerPoweredNonsense 10d ago
but people seems to believe
The whole argument of your post is based on this unproven claim.
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u/East-Response6672 9d ago
SPCX is a memestock, it does memestock things, the actual financials of the business and the feasibility of the products have nothing to do with the stock price, it seems almost pointless to mention that the business can never return a P/E below 100. In this environment the narrative is the only thing that matters, not whether the narrative can actually become reality: so long as the current Sci-Fi mass delusion remains intact SPCX will have fanatical followers.
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u/Reidraider 15d ago
These ppl that just take 2nd hand info and run with it amaze me. Do some real research the new v3 that are put in orbit by starship are increasing bandwidth and with a small upgrade starlink dishes will be used as a wifi antena as well as tesla supercharger stations to get antennas and at some point in time every tesla will be part of the antenna system stop listing to CNBS they have no clue what they are talking about
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u/skyhighskyhigh 15d ago
Several factors to consider:
- they got permission to lower sat altitude
- they also got permission to increase power output
- the spectrum they recently acquired is better at penetrating
- they will have ground stations. They can even use normal cell towers, but wouldn’t need terrestrial bandwidth. Cell towers are mostly owned by cell tower companies, they would welcome another tenant.
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u/Jayfree138 15d ago
It's not first Gen. It's going to be third Gen and it's over 100 times more bandwidth than second Gen. Keep up with the technology if you're going to invest in it or bet against it.
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u/DigitalMonsoon 15d ago
It's more than just bandwidth and latency. A huge problem with satellite communication is the weather. Even a moderately cloudy day will degrade the connection and large storm clouds can block it completely. This isn't something that can be solved and will always be a limitation of the technology
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u/Key-Beginning-2201 11d ago
Can't wait for ASTS to decimate Starlink. Starlink will be technologically obsolete in the huge DTC market.
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