He argued that fiber infrastructure remains superior, noting AT&T’s $3 billion deal with Corning to expand its fiber footprint.
Speaking to Axios, Stankey said SpaceX ’s proposal to turn its satellite business into a global competitor to traditional telecom networks is “not a viable strategy. Earlier this month, T-Mobile CEO Peter Osvaldik dismissed Musk’s Starlink ambitions outright, and said that the strategy should be “laughed out of the room. ” Osvaldik said Starlink’s approach lacked the scale and economics to compete with established carriers, reinforcing skepticism across the telecom industry. AT&T CEO John Stankey has sided with T-Mobile’s chief executive Peter Osvaldik in rejecting Elon Musk ’s plan to disrupt the mobile industry with Starlink.
AT&T announced a $3 billion deal with Corning this week to expand its fiber infrastructure, arguing that fiber delivers speeds three times faster than satellite technology. As of June 30, Starlink had 12 million subscribers and more than 10,200 satellites providing coverage across 167 countries, according to SpaceX’s first earnings report as a public company. its connectivity business is actually the company’s largest revenue driver, accounting for 55% of total sales While SpaceX’s rockets and AI work tend to dominate headlines.
Stankey didn’t mince words about the comparison, saying nothing beats fiber, and that even if satellite technology performs at its absolute best over the next decade, it still won’t be able to match what fiber delivers. Speaking to Axios, Stankey made a similarly confident case for why AT&T isn’t worried, backing it with a major infrastructure move.
Becoming a genuine fourth major US mobile carrier, however, would require significantly more terrestrial infrastructure to match the capacity of a traditional cellular network — a build-out one analyst estimated could cost SpaceX more than $100 billion. SpaceX believes it has found a cheaper alternative: installing small cellular base stations alongside Starlink dishes at homes and businesses, adding capacity where satellite coverage alone falls short, without needing to build the kind of sprawling cell tower network traditional carriers rely on. Musk has claimed these small stations could eventually deliver connectivity to phones with better and higher bandwidth than what’s currently available from existing cellular providers.