Two days after losing a satellite on the launch pad of ambition, AST SpaceMobile got the piece of paper it has chased for years: on April 21 the FCC granted commercial authority for the company to deliver direct-to-device cellular broadband from space across the United States, clearing a 248-satellite constellation and moving satellite-to-phone service from experiment to product. The same week, AT&T opened big-carrier earnings season with strong first quarter results built on bundled fiber and wireless, and Nokia closed out the vendor picture with its own first quarter report. Regulatory green lights, healthy carrier economics, and a recovering equipment market: the industry's spring is running warmer than its winter did.
A week where the future of wireless distribution and the future of spectrum policy both moved. US Mobile, the multi-network MVNO, teased and then launched a bundle with Starlink that pairs satellite home internet with unlimited mobile service for under $50 a month, a pairing no national carrier currently offers. At the FCC, the agency opened public comment on Qualcomm's petition to create a new device-to-device service called Sidelink, and the clock ran out on upfront payments for Auction 113, the AWS-3 auction that will put fresh mid-band spectrum on the block in June. Quiet on the surface, but each story points at where the industry's center of gravity is shifting.
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.
February closed with devices, broadband subsidies, and European money all pointing in the same direction: scale wins. Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S26 series at its Unpacked event in San Francisco on February 25, and Boost Mobile pounced the same day with preorder offers of up to $1,000 off, showing how device launch windows have become carrier customer-acquisition events. In Washington, the Commerce Department approved BEAD spending plans for Washington state and Alaska, bringing the total to 47 states, with Alaska notably allocating about a third of its $629 million to low earth orbit satellite service, a milestone for Starlink's role in subsidized rural broadband. And in Bonn, Deutsche Telekom posted record full-year results on February 26, driven overwhelmingly by T-Mobile US, whose $71.3 billion in service revenue now powers a record dividend for German shareholders.
This was the week the American wireless market showed two very different visions of its future on the same day. On February 11, T-Mobile used a combined earnings call and Capital Markets Day in New York to raise its multi-year targets, posting $71.3 billion in full-year service revenue and setting a goal of 18 to 19 million broadband customers by 2030 across fixed wireless and its growing fiber joint ventures. Hours later, US Mobile, one of the most inventive MVNOs in the country, launched Multi-Network functionality that lets a customer run two national networks at once on a single plan through dual eSIM. One company is spending tens of billions to own infrastructure, the other is treating that infrastructure as an interchangeable ingredient. Rounding out the week, Iridium reported full-year 2025 results on February 12, with $871.7 million in revenue and growing net income, a reminder that the original satellite operators are quietly profitable while the direct-to-cell newcomers burn capital.
The year opened with satellite connectivity dominating both the regulatory docket and the show floor. On January 9, the FCC authorized SpaceX to deploy 7,500 additional Gen2 Starlink satellites, doubling the approved constellation to 15,000 and granting access to new Ku, Ka, V, and W band frequencies. Days earlier at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, direct-to-device connectivity was everywhere, with Skylo named a CES Innovation Awards honoree for bringing two-way satellite emergency messaging to smartwatches, no phone required. Back in Washington, the FCC circulated a draft order on January 8 that would open the 6 GHz band to a new class of high-power geofenced unlicensed devices, a move with real consequences for Wi-Fi offload and IoT deployments.
The year closed with the satellite industry publishing its own report card. On December 31 SpaceX released its third annual Starlink Progress Report, a 75-page account of a breakout year: a completed first-generation direct-to-cell constellation of more than 650 satellites, service in 22 countries across 6 continents, more than 6 million customers, and 27 mobile operator partnerships worldwide. Days earlier, coverage of the FCC's year-end space policy review detailed the mechanics behind the agency's move to higher direct-to-cell power levels, including revisions to the legacy power flux density limits written for a different satellite era. With the FCC's Upper C-band auction rulemaking heading toward a January 5 comment deadline, the quiet holiday week was really a starting line for 2026.
Year-end week delivered a victory lap, a rocket launch, and a regulator's scorecard. T-Mobile published its Un-carrier Unwrapped retrospective on December 22, claiming America's best network title, its strongest quarter in over a decade, and 90 million T-Life installs under new CEO Srini Gopalan. On December 23, AST SpaceMobile launched BlueBird 6 from India, a roughly 2,400 square foot phased array three times larger than its first-generation satellites and the largest commercial communications array ever sent to low Earth orbit. The same day, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr published a list of 75 wins delivered in 2025, confirming among them new frameworks allowing satellite operators to run direct-to-cell services at higher power levels.
A week when two of the industry's biggest structures started to move. On November 13, Reuters reported that Verizon's new CEO Dan Schulman was preparing to cut roughly 15,000 jobs, the largest layoff in the company's history, as part of a restructuring aimed at reversing subscriber losses. The same day, Amazon retired the Project Kuiper name and rebranded its satellite constellation as Amazon Leo, unveiling a lineup of customer terminals as it shifts from launch project to commercial service. And on November 15, EchoStar completed its retreat from network ownership, shutting down its own 5G network and moving all Boost Mobile traffic onto AT&T under a hybrid arrangement, ending the four-network era in US wireless.
The first week of November was a regulator's week with a satellite twist. On November 3 the FCC released its Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on broadband consumer labels, proposing to strip back parts of the labeling regime it finished building only a year earlier and opening a comment window through early December. On November 6 the Commission released its 2025 order on incarcerated people's communications services, revising rate caps and compliance deadlines under the Martha Wright-Reed Act. And on November 7, Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile announced plans for a new European satellite constellation for direct-to-device service, selecting Germany as the site of a sovereign European satellite operations centre for their SatCo joint venture.
The month closed with the two remaining scorecards and a regulator squeezing in its meeting despite the shutdown. On October 28 the FCC held its Space Month open meeting, voting on items to streamline satellite and earth station rules and adopting a further notice proposing to pare back broadband consumer label requirements. On October 29 Verizon reported third quarter earnings in Dan Schulman's first appearance as CEO, where he reiterated guidance and promised a candid reset focused on returning the carrier to customer growth. And on October 31 Charter reported 493,000 new Spectrum Mobile lines, bringing cable's quiet wireless machine to 11.4 million lines at Charter alone.
Earnings week drew the scoreboard for the third quarter, and the gap between the big three kept widening. T-Mobile reported record customer growth on October 23, with more than a million postpaid phone net additions and raised guidance across the board. AT&T posted a solid 405,000 postpaid phone adds a day earlier, growing steadily on the strength of its fiber and wireless bundle. And over the weekend into Monday, SpaceX passed 10,000 Starlink satellites launched, a scale milestone no other constellation operator is close to matching as it pushes deeper into consumer connectivity and direct-to-cell.
The week Verizon hit reset. On October 6 the company abruptly named former PayPal chief Dan Schulman as CEO, replacing Hans Vestberg effective immediately, a board-driven change aimed at reversing subscriber losses at the largest US carrier by revenue. Two days later, AST SpaceMobile announced a definitive commercial agreement with Verizon to deliver space-based cellular service to Verizon customers starting in 2026, using Verizon's 850 MHz spectrum. All of it played out against a federal government shutdown that began October 1 and closed most of the FCC, furloughing the bulk of its staff and freezing filings, databases, and routine approvals across the industry.
Succession and space dominated the week. On September 22 T-Mobile announced that Chief Operating Officer Srini Gopalan will become CEO on November 1, with Mike Sievert moving up to vice chairman after leading the carrier through its Sprint-era transformation into the industry's growth engine. Midweek, SpaceX asked the FCC for authority to launch up to 15,000 additional satellites dedicated to direct-to-cell service using the 2 GHz spectrum it is acquiring from EchoStar. And the commentary wave that followed Apple's eSIM-only iPhone Air crystallized into open industry debate about how quickly the physical SIM should disappear worldwide.
The week EchoStar chose retreat. On August 26 AT&T agreed to acquire roughly 50 MHz of nationwide spectrum from EchoStar, about 30 MHz at 3.45 GHz and 20 MHz at 600 MHz, for approximately 23 billion dollars in cash, sending EchoStar shares up 70 percent and beginning the dismantling of the fourth national network. As part of the arrangement EchoStar announced a hybrid mobile network operator agreement making AT&T the primary network partner for Boost Mobile, and framed the transactions as steps toward resolving the FCC inquiries that had put its licenses at risk. Meanwhile the FCC's satellite broadband spectrum-sharing proceeding closed its reply comment window on August 27, advancing the rules rewrite that will govern how constellations share the sky.
A week of endings and arguments. AOL announced it will shut down its dial-up internet service on September 30 after more than three decades, closing the era that introduced America to the online world. On August 12 NTIA released two MITRE-commissioned reports arguing that smarter receivers, not just more spectrum, are key to squeezing more capacity out of crowded airwaves. And AST SpaceMobile's S-band spectrum acquisition drew analyst fire, with one prominent assessment calling the ITU priority rights largely worthless and igniting a debate over what orbital spectrum positions are really worth.
Space, supply chains, and steady growth defined the week. On August 5 AST SpaceMobile agreed to acquire global S-band spectrum priority rights held under the International Telecommunication Union, deepening its direct-to-device arsenal. On August 6 Apple announced an additional 100 billion dollars in US manufacturing investment, bringing its domestic commitment to 600 billion over four years as tariff pressure reshapes device supply chains. And on August 7 Deutsche Telekom raised its full-year guidance again on the strength of T-Mobile US, underscoring how thoroughly the American market drives the German group's results.
Satellite-to-phone service stopped being a beta this week. On July 23 T-Mobile commercially launched T-Satellite, its Starlink-powered direct-to-cell service, making the US the first major market with broadly available satellite messaging built into a carrier plan, and opened it to rival carriers' customers for ten dollars a month. One day later, Starlink suffered a rare global outage lasting more than two hours, a jarring reminder that the space layer has single points of failure. The same week delivered second quarter earnings from all three national carriers, with T-Mobile posting its best-ever Q2 postpaid growth, Verizon raising full-year guidance, and AT&T beating on wireless while fiber softness drew scrutiny.
Consolidation went orbital this week. On July 17 SES completed its 3.1 billion dollar acquisition of Intelsat, uniting two of the oldest names in satellite communications into a multi-orbit operator with roughly 120 satellites. On July 14 the Government Accountability Office renewed public pressure on NTIA over unimplemented spectrum management recommendations, warning that federal coordination gaps are slowing the pipeline that feeds commercial wireless. And Ericsson's second quarter results on July 15 showed enterprise 5G momentum steadying the vendor while traditional network sales stayed soft, a snapshot of an equipment market waiting for its next buildout cycle.
The satellite race hit two milestones on the same Monday. On June 23 T-Mobile announced that T-Satellite, its Starlink-powered direct-to-cell service, would exit beta and launch commercially on July 23, with data service for apps to follow in October, putting a date on the industry's most anticipated product. Hours earlier, a ULA Atlas V lifted the second batch of 27 Amazon Project Kuiper satellites into orbit, doubling the constellation as Amazon chases its FCC deployment deadline. And by Friday, EchoStar confirmed the pressure campaign was producing movement, with President Trump publicly urging an amicable resolution between the company and the FCC as grace periods on half a billion dollars in skipped interest neared expiration.
Amazon finally left the launchpad. On April 28 a ULA Atlas V carried the first 27 operational Project Kuiper satellites to orbit, the opening deployment of Amazon's 3,236-satellite answer to Starlink and the true start of the LEO broadband duopoly race, six years after the project was announced. The same day, the FCC's open meeting delivered a satellite-friendly rulemaking package, proposing to modernize licensing and squeeze more intensive use from spectrum allocated to space services. And EchoStar closed the week deepening its distress narrative, with filings and reports making clear the company viewed the FCC's gathering scrutiny as a threat to its ability to meet obligations, days before Chairman Carr's letters made the review official.
The tariff other shoe dropped, and SpaceX turned up the spectrum pressure. On April 14 the administration launched a Section 232 national security investigation into semiconductor and electronics imports, confirming that last week's smartphone exemption was a bridge to sector-specific tariffs rather than a reprieve. SpaceX chose the same day to escalate at the FCC, filing new data it said proved EchoStar barely uses its AWS-4 spectrum and renewing its demand for a sharing proceeding in the 2 GHz band. And the FCC teed up its April 28 open meeting with an agenda heavy on satellite modernization, previewing rules to streamline licensing and expand spectrum flexibility for the booming space economy.
The FCC's math changed on March 18. Democratic Commissioner Geoffrey Starks announced he would resign in the spring, a departure that would hand Chairman Carr a working Republican majority months before a new commissioner could be confirmed, easing the path for everything from deregulation to merger conditions. The same day produced the year's biggest security deal, with Google agreeing to acquire cloud security firm Wiz for 32 billion dollars, the largest acquisition in Google's history and a signal of how seriously the cloud giants are arming up as infrastructure attacks like Salt Typhoon reshape enterprise demand. The week also delivered MWC's considered verdict, as analyst retrospectives separated Barcelona's durable signals, satellite, AI-RAN economics, open networks, from its considerable noise.
The satellite race answered back, and the spectrum pipeline formally opened. Verizon completed its first satellite-to-cellular video call using AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird satellites on February 24, a direct riposte to T-Mobile's Starlink Super Bowl moment and proof the AST camp can do more than text. At its February 27 meeting the FCC adopted the upper C-band Notice of Inquiry and AWS-3 auction procedures, converting agenda promises into live proceedings and starting the clock on the next mid-band supply wave. And EchoStar closed the books on a difficult 2024, reporting Boost Mobile subscriber progress amid shrinking revenue and the debt overhang that would define its dramatic year ahead.
T-Mobile used the year's biggest stage to make satellite texting a mass-market product. In a Super Bowl commercial on February 9, the carrier announced its Starlink-powered direct-to-device beta was open to everyone, including Verizon and AT&T customers, free until July, an audacious play that turned a network feature into a customer acquisition funnel running inside rival subscriber bases. Within a day, both rivals rushed out their own satellite messaging talking points. In Espoo, Nokia reached outside telecom entirely for its next chief executive, naming Intel data center and AI chief Justin Hotard to replace Pekka Lundmark, the clearest statement yet that the vendor sees its future in AI infrastructure rather than radio access alone.
The year opened with a spectrum coup, a customer promise, and the annual Las Vegas hardware pilgrimage. AST SpaceMobile started 2025 by securing long-term access to up to 45 megahertz of premium L-band spectrum through a deal with bankrupt Ligado Networks, paying 550 million dollars to give its satellite constellation something no direct-to-device rival owns: dedicated licensed spectrum of its own. AT&T launched the AT&T Guarantee, promising automatic bill credits for network outages across wireless and fiber, a first among the majors and a direct response to its damaging 2024 outage. And CES 2025 wrapped in Las Vegas with AI stitched into everything, from Nvidia's consumer superchips to connected cars, all of it presuming ubiquitous connectivity someone has to sell.