“Unless Starlink can secure an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) agreement from one of the carriers, which would provide a baseline ‌of ⁠coverage, it’s extraordinarily challenging to imagine a direct-to-consumer service from Starlink that could be competitive with carrier services in the next five years,” telecom analyst Craig Moffett said, according to Reuters.

T-Mobile has already partnered with SpaceX, while AT&T and Verizon have deals with satellite company AST SpaceMobile. But all three big carriers seem to want non-SpaceX satellite providers to help fill in dead spots in their networks. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon recently announced a joint venture to pool spectrum “and help satellite providers reach more customers through a unified platform.”

Shotwell and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk indicated the firm won’t build large cell towers. Instead, the terrestrial component will consist of “little femtocells around the country,” Shotwell said. She said the plan is to put “a cellular base station on the, basically, the gear that holds a Starlink broadband dish.”

Musk seemed to indicate that future Starlink dishes used by homes and businesses could double as cellular base stations. “Instead of having to deploy these very expensive and difficult-to-locate large cellular base stations, we feel reasonably confident that we can deploy a large number of sort of small stations,” he said. “Essentially, they’re really just Starlink dishes that also provide connectivity in the mobile spectrum bands, and have them be all over the place.”

Musk said, “Starlink antennas are located on the roofs of houses and businesses. They’ve got a clear view for providing connectivity directly to cellphones on the ground, and in fact, providing connectivity that is, we think, probably better and higher bandwidth than what is currently available from cellular providers.”