SpaceX taps Qualcomm to build ground network for Starlink Mobile

A multiyear deal puts Qualcomm chips inside tens of thousands of planned cell sites as SpaceX takes aim at Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile SpaceX has signed a multiyear deal with Qualcomm to supply core network technology for Starlink Mobile, Elon Musk’s bid to compete with Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. Qualcomm said on Wednesday that the terrestrial network it will help build is meant to “complement Starlink’s satellite capabilities.” The rollout is planned to begin next year. Neither company disclosed financial terms. What Qualcomm is actually bringing The deal, announced on November 4, 2026, centers on Qualcomm’s Dragonwing platforms. Two pieces of hardware do the heavy lifting. The first is the QRU100, a radio unit. The second is the QDU100, a distributed unit. Together they form the guts of the base stations that Starlink Mobile plans to deploy on the ground. These base stations will use high-capacity Massive MIMO technology in a 64T64R configuration. That label refers to 64 transmit and 64 receive paths on a single site. The deployment is expected to start in 2027 and to cover tens of thousands of sites across the US. The pieces SpaceX has been assembling In October 2026, Sp...