Mobile World Congress in Barcelona set the agenda for the entire month, and the loudest story on the keynote stage was not a carrier. SpaceX rebranded its direct-to-cell service as Starlink Mobile, disclosed 10 million monthly active users, and set a target of 25 million by the end of the year. Three days later, T-Mobile's CEO publicly rejected the idea of hosting a Starlink MVNO on his network, which tells you the carriers understood exactly what the rebrand meant. Meanwhile EchoStar closed the book on its fourth-carrier ambitions, reporting year-end results as a self-described hybrid operator that sells spectrum and rides on AT&T's network. On the MVNO side, Juniper Research sized the global market at $54 billion by 2030, and a four-company consortium launched at MWC to industrialize how new MVNOs get to market. Apple rounded out the week with the iPhone 17e, putting Globalstar-powered satellite messaging in a $599 phone.
The week before the election, four storylines that would define 2025 all surfaced at once. A Sixth Circuit panel heard oral arguments on the FCC's net neutrality rules and pressed hard on whether the agency had the statutory authority at all — foreshadowing January's decision to strike them down. Comcast used its earnings call to float spinning off its cable networks, the first domino in the great linear-TV unbundling. Apple committed $1.5 billion to Globalstar, converting iPhone satellite features from a supplier contract into semi-ownership of a constellation. And Charter's 545,000 new mobile lines showed cable's MVNO machine still compounding inside the big carriers' own networks.