TAMPA, Fla. - In a move that says “we’ve decided to stop competing and start collaborating, possibly because the alternative is being left in the dust,” AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon announced a proposed joint venture to pool their spectrum resources for direct-to-device (D2D) satellite services, aiming to standardize their approach and help rural operators shrink coverage gaps.
The three biggest U.S. carriers said May 14 they had agreed in principle to the plan, which AT&T chairman and CEO John Stankey described as “bringing our combined expertise to accelerate our customers’ access to reliable, and always-on coverage everywhere” - a statement notably light on details, presumably because the fine print is still being negotiated over lukewarm coffee and conflicting calendars.
AST SpaceMobile, which counts AT&T and Verizon as anchor partners for D2D services it plans to launch this year after deploying more satellites, greeted the news with the enthusiasm of a kid who just heard their friends are forming a club they were already planning to join. “AST SpaceMobile is happy to see how the industry is preparing to enable space-based cellular broadband connectivity to every American,” said chairman and CEO Abel Avellan, adding that they plan to be “a key enabler of this transformation” by continuing to grow their global low Earth orbit network.
SpaceX, which has been providing Starlink Mobile services in the U.S. since 2025 in partnership with T-Mobile, responded with the sort of swagger that suggests they’ve seen this movie before and know how it ends. “Weeeelllll, I guess @Starlink Mobile is doing something right! It’s David and Goliath (X3) all over again - I’m bettin’ on David :),” SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell posted on X. SpaceX VP David Goldman backed that bet by pointing to a Lightshed Partners article questioning whether regulators would block the tie-up over collusion concerns. The telcos did not respond to requests for comment, possibly because they were busy drafting a joint statement.
OQ Technology, a Luxembourg-based satellite operator planning to ramp up D2D tests this year, welcomed the joint venture as confirmation that “the U.S. carriers are now aligned around satellite-enabled D2D connectivity underscores how important this market has become,” according to CEO Omar Qaise. He called carrier collaboration “an important step” and pointed to the company’s upcoming C-band D2D demonstration, adding that this is “also becoming geopolitically important,” though he noted Europe still “needs a sovereign D2D constellation in the near term” - because nothing says sovereignty like copying your rivals’ homework.
Analysts, meanwhile, have stressed how preliminary the venture is, with operating details, financial structure, and partner ecosystem all TBD. NewStreet Research described the JV as likely acting as a D2D intermediary, buying capacity wholesale to resell to carriers, which they said “suggests that none believe that they have the ultimate solution (or they believe that by combining forces they can create a better mutual solution).” Raymond James analysts agreed, predicting the JV will operate more as a “marketing agent” linking carriers with smaller providers, since existing agreements have been “less effective for customers, with disappointing uptake/usage.” The JV, they argued, “should help customers actually get service in dead zones” by combining the best of all worlds - while acknowledging that demand for these services and the economics of providing them remain, well, unclear.