T-Mobile has teamed up with Starlink for its T-Satellite service, which brings satellite connectivity to any modern smartphone. The company has since announced a new 5G business plan that uses Starlink for backup internet connectivity. But what about the potential of Starlink MVNO?
T-Mobile CEO Srinivasan Gopalan poured cold water on the possibility of a Starlink MVNO during the carrier’s Q1 2026 earnings call:
At MVNO, we have a very clear philosophy or vision for MVNO. MVNO makes sense for us when it has TAM (total addressable market – ed) expansion. TAM expands because it’s a new customer base that we couldn’t target before. This is a new channel. I mean, an example of that is what we did with cable focused on SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses – ed.). It’s not clear to me how an MVNO with SpaceX or any other LEO operator meets those conditions.
In other words, T-Mobile thinks Starlink MVNOs won’t actually grow the market. The statement comes months after Starlink filed a trademark for Starlink Mobile. This also follows the company’s acquisition of terrestrial bandwidth from Boost Mobile’s parent company. So there is no question of any kind of Starlink mobile service, but T-Mobile cannot play any role in it.
Interestingly, Gopalan says the T-Satellite service is being used “much less” than the company had originally envisioned. He nevertheless praised it as a “great supplement product”. The acknowledgment comes about a year after T-Mobile and Starlink launched the service, which offers emergency SOS, texting, voice chat and some data connectivity. T-Satellite differs from satellite services provided by most manufacturers in that it does not require specific hardware.
