Wireless

SpaceX helps give towers new lease on life

By Monica Alleven Oct 28, 2026 3:10pm

After falling on SpaceX's femtocell talk, tower stocks are rebounding as American Tower and Crown Castle say they're "talking to all parties"
MoffettNathanson calls SpaceX's plan to secure 80,000 cites a "head scratcher" and says it could be partly a negotiating tactic
LightShed says SpaceX isn't bluffing and estimates an initial build could cost $10 billion to $15 billion, not half a trillion

Cell phone towers are cool again.

SpaceX got the ball rolling after President and COO Gwynne Shotwell dropped “towers” into her Q3 earnings call discussion last week about how SpaceX will become a rival mobile phone operator.

Then on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, Bloomberg reported that SpaceX aims to secure at least 80,000 cell sites as part of its plan to become a major U.S. mobile carrier. Crown Castle’s shares rose more than 9% on that report.

Both Crown Castle and American Tower recently reported Q3 earnings and while their shares were down slightly today, their upbeat comments come as welcome news after a rough year or so for the U.S. tower sector. Dish Wireless left many of them high and dry after claiming a “force majeure” event, which led it to stop paying tower companies and cell site landlords; lawsuits ensued.

Now, it looks as though tower companies are in a better position to sell that Dish equipment to SpaceX – if it so desires to acquire it. (One flip side to that argument is SpaceX might want to build everything from scratch and not have anything to do with legacy equipment. Still, upside for towers.)

American Tower: We own Dish gear on towers

Asked about Dish’s equipment during American Tower’s Q3 earnings call on Tuesday, CEO and President Steven Vondran said American Tower owns the equipment as of the date of an abandonment order in the bankruptcy proceedings – an order that previously went mostly unnoticed by analysts.

He didn’t say who might be interested in the equipment, but that “we do own it, and we can provide access to that to all interested parties.”

Of course, he didn’t reveal specifics about any potential discussions with Starlink Mobile, but “you should assume that anybody who wants to build a network in the U.S. at scale is going to come to American Tower as one of their premier tower vendors, if not the premier tower vendor,” he said.

LightShed Partners analysts Walter Piecyk and Joe Galone noted that the bankruptcy court order gives American Tower ownership of Dish’s abandoned radios and antennas on its towers, meaning SpaceX can “now negotiate directly with the tower companies without waiting for bankruptcy mediation to conclude. More importantly, it takes [Charlie] Ergen, a notoriously tough negotiator, out of the mix,” they wrote in an October 27 blog post (registration required).

Crown Castle ready for SpaceX, too

Last week, on Crown Castle’s Q3 earnings call – one day after SpaceX’s own Q3 call – Crown Castle CEO and President Christian Hillabrant said SpaceX’s mobile network ambitions could provide an additional catalyst in two ways: first, by investing directly in leasing towers to build its network and second, as a catalyst for network operators “to achieve investment in their mobile networks to enhance performance and coverage against new entrants in the wireless marketplace.” He also noted that Crown has about 40,000 cell sites at its disposal.

In addition to all that, Crown Castle expects the FCC to auction about 800 megahertz of spectrum, including 160 megahertz of upper C-band spectrum in 2027, and it continues to see momentum in edge compute infrastructure as data center deployments undergo multiyear construction. Crown Castle has 100-plus edge sites deployed and several concurrent trials underway, Hillabrant said.

As to a question from analyst Ric Prentiss of Raymond James about the progress from satellite companies on potential master lease agreements (MLAs) – whether that be SpaceX, Amazon or someone else – Hillabrant declined to go into detail but said “you can assume that we're talking to all parties.”

How long will it take SpaceX to build a terrestrial network?

Central to the discussion about SpaceX’s terrestrial buildout is the timeline. How long will it take, if it indeed needs/wants 80,000 cell sites? And if it was interested in Dish’s gear that already exists on towers, why didn’t it move faster to buy it?

In an October 27 research note (registration required), MoffettNathanson Research analyst Nick Del Deo said the idea that SpaceX would deploy as many sites as any one of the incumbent carriers remains a “head scratcher.”

He asked: Why would the company need 80,000 cell sites if the direct-to-device (D2D) overlay and/or small cell augmentation contributed as planned, especially with an empty network to start? It’s possible that the 80,000 sites are not all macro sites but instead include some small cells mounted on traditional tower infrastructure or rooftops, though small cells generally don’t match up well with these locations, he said.

“This could be a long-term site count rather than a near-term one, with tower deals simply contemplating that ramp over time,” Del Deo said. “Firm lease commitments could be a fraction of the total. And, of course, there could be a negotiating tactic component; if one wants to scare the incumbents into providing a wholesale deal, go big. After all, we still can’t answer the question: to what end?”

Still, SpaceX buying spectrum and looking at sites increase the odds that this is a real opportunity for tower companies, he added. “It would serve to boost what was otherwise a soft U.S. and Canada leasing result from American Tower, which is emblematic of why the market was unenthusiastic about the tower industry’s growth prospects until recently,” Del Deo said.

Bluff for MVNO or real deal?

Up until recently, a prevailing thought among Wall Street analysts was that SpaceX was mostly bluffing about building out a macro cellular network. That’s because the easier route is to establish an MVNO agreement with an existing carrier and hope for a “prisoner’s dilemma” sort of outcome.

But none of the Big 3 U.S. wireless carriers has shown any interest in striking an MVNO deal with SpaceX/Starlink Mobile

LightShed analysts are clear on one thing: SpaceX is not bluffing about building.

“Buying Dish’s equipment from the tower companies and entering into new leases could accelerate SpaceX’s plans. But passing on it would not change our long-held view that SpaceX is building a terrestrial wireless network,” they wrote. “Neither would signing an MVNO agreement with a telco tomorrow. SpaceX is not bluffing. It is building a network, and we do not believe it needs 80,000 cell sites and $500 billion to launch initial service.”

Verizon CEO’s time estimates

During Verizon’s Q3 call on Monday, CEO Dan Schulman said he doesn’t buy into the idea of a “prisoner’s dilemma” when it comes to an MVNO with any satellite provider. Schulman, as well as AT&T CEO John Stankey and T-Mobile CEO Srini Gopalan, have all said they’re not interested in doing an MVNO deal with SpaceX.

Schulman also said he’s operating under the assumption that everything SpaceX says they will do, they will do, and “that they will execute flawlessly.” That said, he believes it will take at least four to six years to fully build out a terrestrial network at a cost of between $300 billion and half a trillion over the next seven or eight years.

The LightShed analysts challenged that assessment, saying those comments “wildly overstate” what SpaceX needs to spend before becoming a “competitive problem.”

As discussed on the Decoder Podcast, an initial build could require $10 billion to $15 billion of capex, excluding spectrum, with further investment as customers and traffic grow, they said, concluding: “Treating a full buildout as the price of admission offers investors false comfort. We look forward to comparing Schulman’s estimate with SpaceX’s actual plans.”

SpaceX founder Elon Musk on Monday gave his assessment of the timeline on his X.com social media platform, indicating it will take only two or three years:

Will take 2 or 3 years
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2026

What’s the plan?

Much of this is a bunch of speculation until SpaceX reveals its larger plan, which Musk, during the Q3 conference call, suggested might happen. Analysts expect that an event could be staged in the next few weeks, giving everyone more details about how this is all going to shake out.

“We view the commentary, specifically around towers and suggesting an analyst event, is incrementally positive for towers and negative for carriers but to what degree is TBD,” wrote TD Cowen analysts in an October 21 SpaceX report.

“Specifically, we’d like to see more details around a network deployment plan and meaningful execution proof-points such as long-term tower/fiber contracts. Actually hosting an event and subsequently signing tower/fiber contracts would change the narrative from today’s probability scenario analysis to a competitive analysis,” the TD Cowen analysts said.