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If there is one thing we know about Elon Musk, it is that his ambitions sprawl, which suggests Starlink might not just be a fall-back service for telcos for long

Last week, Deutsche Telekom announced a satellite-based fixed internet service with Starlink, dubbed Satellite Internet Access by Starlink or SIA. Aimed at enterprises in underserved locations, SIA is positioned as a backup broadband connection when land-based service is disrupted or unavailable. 

Before that, in March, DT announced a similar deal with Starlink, signing the space-based broadband provider for its direct-to-device (D2D) service. Using its upcoming V2 constellation, DT is set to bring a fill-in D2D service to 10 European countries, starting 2028.

“It’s sort of a vote of confidence in Starlink by Deutsch Telecom,” says Mike Dano, former-RCR fellow, and currently lead analyst at Ookla. “I’d also say it stems from the existing agreement that Starlink has with T-Mobile for the first generation of direct-to-device.”

Indeed Starlink has deep ties with T-Mobile, the parent company of DT. T-Mobile launched T-Satellite, a D2D service enabled by Starlink’s low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, in October 2025, that is available today either for free or at $10 per month.

Together, the providers have formed partnerships with a large number of mobile network operators (MNOs), including Rogers in Canada, KDDI in Japan, Opus in Australia, One NZ in New Zealand, Salt in Switzerland, and Entel in Latin America, extending service to areas beyond traditional cellular coverage.

But T-Mobile is not a special ally. Starlink has inked a string of deals with telcos, mobile network operators, and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) around the world in the recent years— two of India’s largest telcos — Reliance Jio and Airtel, SaskTel in Canada, Televisa Bestel in Mexico, Globe Telecom in Philippines, US Mobile, to name just a few.

Charting Starlink’s meteoric rise

Each of the partnerships focuses on building a contiguous coverage, or as they say, “no dead zone” coverage — the telcos bring land-based service and Starlink fills in the gaps in their coverage — whether at home or on phone, in wartime and peacetime. Starlink’s satellite service has provided critical connectivity in countless war zones and disaster-stricken areas.

While that proves the power of space-based broadband beyond doubt, it also raises the question, is Elon Musk’s vision limited to just serving as a backup to big telcos? “I think there is something more to Starlink,” says Sebastian Barros, analyst, and founder of Circles, an independent tech firm in Mexico. “I think they are not coming for just being a passive niche spectator in this game.” 

Speaking on the David Senra show in March, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen rightly said that Starlink is one of the “least studied and understood” businesses in the world. 

What makes Starlink fascinating is how it turned decades of failed attempts into success. Long before Starlink became a household name, Microsoft and McCaw Cellular floated the idea of “internet in the sky” in the 1990s. Together they launched Teledesic, an ambitious project to offer satellite internet service using a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation. The reason we do not hear about it anymore is because the project ended in a disaster. It was too ambitious for its time, and was undone by the economics of the era. 

Others too have tried and failed. Iridium, the “original gangster” of the LEO play, went bankrupt trying to bring to market a satellite-based service, eventually finding footing in the IoT sector. 

So what kept Starlink going, or might I say, thriving? To answer that, it’s important to understand Starlink’s core business model. Today, Starlink operates two growing business segments: fixed broadband, its primary business, where a customer buys a receiver and gets internet over Wi-Fi at home, a place of business, or any other fixed location. The other is direct-to-device, where the phone connects directly to a satellite. Both businesses are positioned to provide high-speed connectivity for remote, rural, or in-motion use cases, which opens up a very lucrative market still untapped by traditional telcos.

Just in terms of rural areas, Starlink’s share is massive. “If you think about the world today, this is interesting. If you take the whole world, there are around two billion households globally right now. Around one billion of those households fall outside the economics of efficient fixed networks, either because they’re in rural areas or at the edge of the service areas,” Barros says. 

“You might think the economics still may not be great..Probably out of these one billion households that cannot be addressed today with existing terrestrial technology, maybe only 10% is able to afford [Starlink], but still that is already $150 million in revenues that he can grab easily,” he argues. 

And if you map this to Starlink’s growth trajectory, the possibility of it growing into a mainstream player starts to look very real.

Within the U.S., the company is increasingly becoming a direct competitor to the cable companies for fixed internet service. “I think it is pretty remarkable because when Starlink first launched its fixed internet service, it was really just thought of as a rural option in locations where there was literally no other option available. This was the only option if you’re out in an RV or in the mountain somewhere for fixed internet service. But now, I think increasingly Starlink’s fixed internet service is capable enough that it can provide a comparable service to some cable internet options and could become a direct competitor to some cable, DSL [Digital Subscriber Line] or copper fixed internet services,” Dano says.

Every quarter, for the past couple of years, Starlink has reached some new milestone, working its way intentionally to this point. According to an Ookla research, in the states of Florida, Massachusetts, Hawaii, New Jersey and Connecticut, Starlink has more users in urban areas today than in rural parts.

Simultaneously, it is reaching for users in semi-rural areas and city outskirts. India is a good example of this, Barros says. “Fixed wireless access is actually picking up faster than fiber because it’s so easy…and you can get a pretty decent experience with 5G. Having economies of scale allows them to compete in the Indian market for home broadband. They can pretty much cover any line of sight territory, even apartments.”

In second half of 2025, Starlink’s broadband speeds improved dramatically, with over 50% of users in the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, and Nevada experiencing speeds of 100/20 Mbps — at or above FCC’s baseline standard. 

The Ookla research details the reasons for this: close proximity — thousands of Starlink satellites are within a distance of 341 miles from the ground; wide area coverage — a satellite beams over up to 60 square miles of area; and sparse user population, approximately 10 to 20 users per 60 square mile in rural areas. 

In some sense, Starlink is that frenemy that telcos must learn how to live with. “I think telcos need to be smart — not necessarily not partner with [Starlink] — I think it makes a lot of sense for them to do so because there are certain areas where building a site in a rural area will never be profitable. But they need to understand that the relationship is always a little bit what I call ‘frenemy’,” says Barros.

Pablo Tomasi of Omdia also senses a conflict of interest. Commenting on DT’s back-to-back deal with Starlink, he says, “At the moment, it seems all about getting a logo and service to the market,” adding that DT’s partnership with Starlink is at odds with the provider’s wider strategy of being a sovereign champion in Europe.

Justifying the trillion dollar IPO

SpaceX recently filed for a historic IPO, aiming to reach a cumulative valuation of $2 trillion for SpaceX, Starlink, and xAI. To justify this sum, a direct-to-device proposition and a 10,000 satellite constellation are not enough. “They need to go with something much bigger,” Barros says.  

And they are going big. Starlink Mobile is fast turning into a formidable presence in the D2D space. It already boasts 10 million subscribers worldwide — and in 2026, SpaceX expects to add an average of 52,000 new subscribers daily. A big piece of that is the upcoming V3 Starship rockets which boast 100-ton payload capacity and full reusability, which will significantly add to SpaceX’s launch capacity. And in a couple years, when the V2 satellites reach orbit, Starlink Mobile will have 5G-like speeds and complete coverage for text, voice, and data, the company said at MWC.

Already Starlink contributes 80% of SpaceX’s revenue, even though it originally started as a side project to the rocket company. Take a moment to think how bigger it can grow once Starlink Mobile reaches its full potential. 

“He’s building the largest company in the world. Clearly, he’s not going to be happy with just the 10 million subs..I think we can all agree to that,” Barros says.

But there’s a caveat. “On the mobile side, Starlink is a little bit more limited. They will never have the bandwidth or the technology to compete in super-dense urban areas or even indoors because…you always need line of sight with Starlink. So that’s not an area where they can compete. But again, there is an angle where telcos need to be careful on the D2D which is not losing control of their subscribers,” he says.

Tomasi says, ”Partnerships with MNOs are essential for Starlink to drive D2D adoption, with MNO spectrum being critical for the provision of those services — though SpaceX recently bought spectrum from EchoStar, so it could use its own spectrum in certain scenarios. For the most part, Starlink will not be a direct rival to MNOs since D2D is a peripheral use case — in areas with no coverage— and since NTNs [non-terrestrial networks] will not be able to provide the same experience, network capacity, etc., of a terrestrial 5G network. I do think, however, that Starlink could further target selected niche or vertical markets, leveraging its global positioning and widespread assets and partnerships, and in those cases it could become a more direct threat to telcos.”

In the LEO space, Starlink faces competition from several new and upcoming providers, including Amazon Leo, which recently acquired Globalstar for $12 billion in its effort to enter the D2D space; AST SpaceMobile which is looking at a commercial launch later this year — and has also partnered widely with operators, including AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Rakuten Mobile, and Bell Canada; Lynk Global which recently merged with Omnispace to develop a cost-effective D2D connectivity solution; and Eutelsat OneWeb, a global LEO player with over 600 satellites in orbit — but insofar, Starlink remains the undisputed leader in the space.

All said and done, what Musk’s true ambition with Starlink is, is anyone’s guess. As Tomasi says, “It is very difficult to understand the end game of Mr Musk. I think that currently Starlink and SpaceX are creating synergies and revenues, also providing lessons and expertise for the ultimate goal of becoming a space hyperscaler. The idea seems to create an E2E [end-to-end] network from launching capabilities to connectivity and computing, with the latest point potentially being the most disruptive — and challenging— bet. It is about a long term view of leading the space economy.”

For context, it’s worth hearing from the man himself. Speaking at the All-In Summit last year, Musk said this when asked, whether Starlink as a global carrier would make smaller regional carriers obsolete: “To be clear, we’re not going to put the other carriers out of business. They’re still going to be around because they own a lot of spectrum…But yes, you should be able to have a Starlink, like you have an AT&T or T-Mobile or Verizon or whatever. You could have an account with Starlink that works with your Starlink antenna at home with Wi-Fi as well as on your phone.” That’s plenty telling of the size of his ambition with Starlink.