AT&T's CEO throws shade at Musk's Starlink mobile ambitions

Elon Musk wants SpaceX to rotate into a important US mobile carrier. AT&T CEO John Stankey says: not so fast.

AT&T has an advantage from years of funding in compact municipal and suburban areas, he stated on AT&T's third-quarter earnings call, a day following Musk and SpaceX chief functioning authoritative Gwynne Shotwell reported additional than 22 myriad monthly Starlink Mobile users.

"Our competitors cannot and volition not equivalent our functioning proficiency, network performance, or exceptional converged value proposition," Stankey said.

Stankey sees a use case for satellite-based net to soften the edges of fiber-connected and 5G networks, particularly in places anywhere it's too costly to build out the bodily infrastructure, he said.

"I think LEO constellations are awesome for delivering bandwidth to agrarian areas," he said, using the acronym for low-Earth orbit moon arrays.

Shotwell stated Tuesday that Starlink lately got FCC endorsement to initiate 15,000 V2 satellites. She additionally noted a latest accord to get a portfolio of low-band transfer spectrum, or wireless frequence licenses, which improved penetrate buildings to attain indoor devices.

Stankey was unimpressed.

"How you execute indoors, of course, is extremely important, and we shouldn't think concerning those as being nominal loads," he said. "They're important loads, equal alongside sturdy Wi-Fi networks that are out there."

This is particularly crucial in crowded environments akin stadiums and hospitals, anywhere he stated AT&T has been focused on beefing up indication support.

"I wouldn't over-rotate on what I would call one transporter of low collection spectrum," he said, referring to Starlink.