SpaceX wants direct access to Australia’s 2 GHz mobile-satellite band for its next-generation Starlink Mobile service, which sends signals straight to ordinary phones. In a submission to a Senate committee, SpaceX said the band would let it “partner with multiple cellular carriers”, and argued against the auction Australia’s regulator has proposed.
Starlink is the largest non-NBN retail broadband provider in the ACCC’s count. ACCC data put it at 552,000 non-NBN retail broadband services at the end of 2025, 58% of all such services in Australia. By our arithmetic, Starlink added 255,000 of the 264,000 net new services in 2025, or 97% of the growth.
Business Pill · Distribution Advantage Explained
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on distribution advantage. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss SpaceX, Starlink or spectrum.
The key insight: Starlink held 552,000 of Australia’s 950,000 non-NBN retail broadband services at the end of 2025, 58%, and took 255,000 of the 264,000 net additions that year, 97%, by our arithmetic on ACCC data, while its phone service still runs on airwaves leased from carrier partners.
Today Starlink’s phone service in Australia runs on airwaves leased from carrier partners. The submission, dated 8 April 2026, says SpaceX partnered with Telstra to connect LTE-enabled phones with Starlink outside the range of towers, a service that launched in June 2025.
SpaceX says the first-generation system is limited “as we rely on leased spectrum from our mobile partner in every market where we operate”. Its answer is its own airwaves. SpaceX writes that in 2025 it “acquired spectrum in the global S-band (2 GHz) from EchoStar”, along with priority filings at the International Telecommunication Union.
The plan in the submission: start deploying Starlink Mobile Gen2 satellites in 2026, reach “an initial deployment of 1,000 satellites by the end of 2027” and eventually deploy 5,000. SpaceX says they will give users “more than 10x the throughput of the current system”, enabling broadband over 100 Mbps, voice, text and IoT.
Non-NBN retail broadband services in operation in Australia, in thousands, Starlink against all other non-NBN retail providers. Source: ACCC Internet Activity RKR data tables, Table 4, December 2025. Others are the ACCC total minus Starlink; the shares and the 97% of 2025 net additions are our arithmetic.
What Australia’s Regulator Has Proposed
The Australian Communications and Media Authority is preparing to allocate 2 x 25 MHz of the band, 1980–2005 MHz and 2170–2195 MHz, for Australia-wide mobile-satellite services. Its consultation paper of July 2025, as quoted in the Mobile Satellite Services Association’s response, set out two preliminary views.
The first was to split the spectrum into “a 2 x 15 MHz and 2 x 10 MHz configuration in fixed frequency ranges”. The second was to allocate licences “by price-based allocation via auction”, or for a pre-determined price where demand does not exceed supply. On that split, the larger lot is 60% of the band, by our arithmetic.
ACMA’s page, last updated on 6 August 2026, still says: “We plan to commence an auction in the second quarter of 2026.” It also says the regulator expected to consult on draft instruments in late 2025 or early 2026.
SpaceX’s submission calls an auction of this band “a major deviation from the international treatment of satellite spectrum”. It asks for an administrative allocation with service delivery requirements and periodic review, and says: “SpaceX is not asking for exclusive rights to the 2 GHz MSS spectrum for an indefinite period”.
Starlink’s Base in Australia
The ACCC’s internet activity tables count Starlink services at 297,000 in December 2024, 375,000 in June 2025 and 552,000 in December 2025. Over the same year, total non-NBN retail broadband rose from 686,000 to 950,000. Telstra’s own non-NBN retail count fell from 101,000 to 95,000.
The phone side is smaller but busy. In a post dated 28 July 2026, Telstra said more than 26 million texts had been sent or received using Telstra Satellite Messaging, and more than 2.9 million users had connected via satellite over the past 13 months. That is about nine texts per connected user, by our arithmetic.
What Was Posted on X
The request drew attention on Monday through a post by @cb_doge, an account that regularly promotes SpaceX, at 12:36 UTC. It cited the 552,000 and 2.9 million figures and argued that Australia should grant SpaceX the licence. That argument is the poster’s view; we report the filings.
Why the Airwaves Matter
SpaceX’s submission frames the stakes itself: on leased spectrum it relies on its mobile partner in each market, while its own 2 GHz band would let it support all carriers in a country, “including its smallest and least-resourced carriers”. In the United States, SpaceX agreed to pay roughly $19.6 billion for EchoStar’s spectrum, as we covered in SpaceX Taps Qualcomm for 5G Sites After $19.6B Spectrum Deal.
Telstra, SpaceX’s current partner, has said it is not trying to keep others out. A Telstra spokesman told iTnews in April: “We are not seeking to exclude satellite network operators or any MNO from accessing the 2GHz band,” adding that Telstra had no preference between an auction and an administrative allocation.
The Structural Read
As we read the submission, the 2 GHz band is what would turn Starlink Mobile from a feature sold through one carrier into a network that can serve several. SpaceX itself says the leased-spectrum model limits its first-generation service.
SpaceX submission to the Senate committee, 8 April 2026
“Because SpaceX does not have exclusive spectrum rights, the service under our first-generation system is limited, as we rely on leased spectrum from our mobile partner in every market where we operate.”
Three Implications
FOR AUSTRALIAN CARRIERS SpaceX says its own band would let it support all carriers in a country, including its smallest and least-resourced carriers; today the service runs through a partner.
FOR ACMA Its published plan proposes 2 x 15 MHz and 2 x 10 MHz lots and a price-based allocation; SpaceX asks for an administrative allocation with service requirements.
FOR STARLINK IN AUSTRALIA The ACCC count rose from 297,000 to 552,000 services in 2025, while Telstra’s non-NBN retail count fell from 101,000 to 95,000.
The framework says: “This entire ecosystem has been shaped by constraints, bottlenecks, chokepoints, and scarcity at every layer.”
As we read it, licensed spectrum is one such scarce input for any network that reaches phones from space, and ACMA’s allocation method decides who gets it in Australia. The framework does not discuss SpaceX, Starlink or ACMA.
What Is Not Established
We found no final ACMA decision on the allocation method. Reports conflict: Light Reading wrote in April that ACMA had canvassed an auction but not yet decided, while iTnews reported that SpaceX said it was satisfied, from ACMA’s testimony to the Senate inquiry, that the regulator does not intend to auction the remaining allocations.
The @cb_doge post also says about 5.55 million square kilometres have no outdoor signal from a tower. We could not trace that figure to a primary source and do not use it. Two figures in SpaceX’s published submission, its Australian household count and its global direct-to-cell user count, are blank in the PDF.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
The Great Convergence of Capital, Power, and Geopolitics
This week’s issue: for two years the AI build-out was priced as a supply story, and last week as a credit story. This week it was priced as a permission story, and the answer arrived as a cost, not a ban.
SpaceX wants its own slice of Australia’s 2 GHz band instead of leasing Telstra’s airwaves, and ACMA’s published plan still points to an auction of 2 x 25 MHz in two lots. Starlink held 58% of Australia’s non-NBN retail broadband services at the end of 2025, by our arithmetic on ACCC data.
A note on sourcing. SpaceX’s position comes from its 8 April 2026 submission to the Senate committee, which we read in full. ACMA’s band plan comes from its own page and, for the consultation paper’s preliminary views, from the MSSA response that quotes them. Subscriber figures come from the ACCC’s December 2025 tables and Telstra’s July 2026 post. The 58% share, the 97% of growth, the 60% lot share and the nine texts per user are our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
