SpaceX pursues tower deals for 80,000 cell sites to build wireless carrier

what happened

SpaceX is in talks with tower companies, including Crown Castle, to secure access to at least 80,000 cell sites across the US as it builds toward a hybrid terrestrial-and-satellite wireless network, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Crown Castle CEO Chris Hillabrant confirmed active discussions on the company's October 21 earnings call, saying SpaceX's mobile network ambitions could lead it to lease towers directly to build its "previously announced terrestrial network" or push existing carriers to invest more in their own networks, and that Crown Castle's roughly 40,000 sites often already have zoning and permitting in place.

why it matters

American Tower is the second major US tower operator, after Crown Castle, to say on an earnings call it expects to be approached as SpaceX builds out a terrestrial network to support Starlink's wireless ambitions, suggesting SpaceX is shopping the deal across multiple tower vendors rather than negotiating with one exclusively. American Tower CEO Steven Vondran said Oct. 27 the company is "really encouraged" by Starlink's public statements on building terrestrial infrastructure and would expect to be "one of their premier tower vendors, if not the premier tower vendor" for any company building a US wireless network at scale, while declining to discuss specific talks, per a Motley Fool earnings-call transcript.

signal-to-noise

quick facts

Companies

SpaceX, Crown Castle

Category

partnership

Impact

notable

SNR

4 / 5

Event date

2026-10-22

Published

2026-10-22 22:20 UTC