- SpaceX is moving ahead with plans for an IPO
- And SpaceX has also filed for trademarks that indicate it might compete as a 4th wireless provider
- But Amazon Leo is coming onto the scene with an apparently good relationship with President Trump
Satellite is eating the world. Or at least the news cycle. And some of it will directly affect the telecom space.
Yesterday, Reuters reported that Elon Musk's SpaceX is moving ahead with plans for an initial public offering that would seek to raise at least $30 billion and target a valuation of about $1.5 trillion.
Earlier this week, Light Reading reported that SpaceX recently filed for two trademarks: "Starlink Mobile" and "Powered by Starlink" with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The filings suggest that SpaceX might have bigger plans for wireless disruption than the industry would prefer.
There’s also a continuous news flow about satellite’s participation in the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.
Some news outlets that cover satellite have posted headlines highlighting the fact that SpaceX's Starlink and Amazon Leo will receive only about 4% of the $20 billion in awards from the BEAD program.
While that is true, SpaceX and Amazon are set to receive about 21%, or about 887,600, of the location awards for BEAD across all the states and territories. These two companies are the largest single recipients of BEAD awards.
The large discrepancy between the percent of funding compared to the percent of locations is due to the fact that satellite equipment is not very expensive compared to infrastructure investments necessary for fiber and fixed wireless access (FWA) deployments.
One of the more interesting facts about the BEAD awards to the top two satellite broadband providers is that Amazon Leo doesn’t even have a commercial satellite constellation yet.
Politics plays into the satellite broadband landscape
A new comprehensive satellite report prepared by Roger Entner from Recon Analytics, notes that the dynamic between Donald Trump and tech moguls has shifted, with Jeff Bezos successfully positioning himself as a responsible alternative to Elon Musk.
However, SpaceX already has a huge constellation of LEO satellites, while Amazon only plans to have 180 LEO satellites in orbit by mid December. But in order to comply with its Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license, it’s supposed to have 1,618 satellites operational by July 30, 2026. This leaves Amazon Leo with a gap of 1,438 satellites.
Entner said this leaves "an impossible gap."
The Recon Analytics report states, “With only 180 satellites projected to be in orbit by mid-December 2025, the gap is mathematically uncloseable through launch cadence alone. Consequently, Amazon requires a waiver that would typically invite withering scrutiny; however, the shifted political landscape, where President Trump increasingly favors Jeff Bezos over the volatile Elon Musk, renders such regulatory accommodation probable, if not a certainty.”
Entner predicts that the FCC will grant Amazon Leo an extension to avoid entrenching a SpaceX monopoly.
We'll have to wait and see. In any event, 2026 is going to be an exciting year to follow satellite’s disruption in the telecom space.