SpaceX reportedly in talks to use 80,000 US cell sites in push into mobile carrier market

If the arrangement goes ahead, SpaceX would pair tower access with its satellite network to compete with the country's largest wireless carriers.

SpaceX is reportedly negotiating with Crown Castle, one of the largest US cell tower owners, to gain access to about 80,000 cell sites as it moves to challenge Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T directly. Bloomberg's sourcing indicates the arrangement would let SpaceX combine a tower network with its direct-to-cell satellite constellation. Reuters puts the scale in context: 80,000 sites would amount to roughly half of the 158,500 cell towers currently operating in the country. On an earnings call, Crown Castle's chief executive declined to name customers but indicated the company is in discussions with all parties interested in satellite services, including SpaceX and Amazon. The push follows SpaceX's recent purchase of low-band spectrum licenses and an FCC approval to deploy 15,000 upgraded V2 Starlink Mobile satellites, after it bought 2GHz spectrum from EchoStar for $17 billion last year.