10月16日：SpaceX称其最近数十亿美元购买美国频谱是构建移动网络的关键一步，但要打造真正能与美国主要运营商抗衡的竞争对手，还需要地面网络，并可能需要数年时间和数十亿美元的额外投入。
Oct 16 : SpaceX called its recent multibillion-dollar purchase of US airwaves a critical step towards building a mobile network, but constructing a true rival to major American carriers will require a terrestrial network and likely years of work and billions more.
Starlink通过在农村和人口稀少地区提供互联网服务实现了盈利，这些地区竞争较少，同时推出了易于安装且价格具有竞争力的家庭套餐。移动业务则会更难。
Starlink became a money maker by offering internet service in rural and sparsely populated areas, where it faced little competition, as well as changing to easy-to-set-up home packages at a competitive price. Mobile will be harder.
城市是移动电话通信尤其艰难的地方，对移动设备与卫星的连接来说也在技术上具有挑战性。
Cities are particularly tough places for mobile telephony and are technologically challenging for mobile-to-satellite connections.
这家火箭和卫星公司可能需要在基础设施、客户服务、手机补贴和促销方面大量投入——这些是无线业务中成本高昂的部分，而AT&T、Verizon和T-Mobile在这些领域已拥有广泛的运营。
The rocket and satellite company will likely need to invest heavily in ground infrastructure, customer service, handset subsidies and promotions — costly parts of the wireless business in which AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile already have extensive operations.
据TD Cowen称，建设网络的成本将超过800亿美元，并将增加SpaceX的资金需求，该公司正在向其星舰火箭计划、AI基础设施和Terafab芯片工厂投入资金。
Building a network would cost more than $80 billion, according to TD Cowen, and add to SpaceX's capital demands as it pours money into its Starship rocket program, AI infrastructure, and Terafab chip factory.
“很难想象这一切能在十年内完成，”MoffettNathanson的研究分析师朱洁说。“在2023年前的十年左右，三大运营商花费了约6500亿美元的资本支出来建设网络，而这些网络表面上早已建成。”大多数手机的天线较小、发射功率有限，这使得可靠的卫星连接更具挑战性，因为卫星绕地球运行，距离数百公里，远比基站远得多。
"It's just hard to imagine that this is all going to get done within a decade," said Julie Zhu, a research analyst at MoffettNathanson. "In the decade or so leading up to 2023, the big three spent about $650 billion in capex to build in networks that ostensibly were already finished." Most phones have small antennas and limited transmitting power that make reliable satellite connections more challenging because satellites orbit hundreds of kilometers above Earth, much farther away than cell towers.
“卫星作为数据的唯一来源存在太多陷阱，”Moor Insights & Strategy的首席分析师安舍尔·萨格说。
"There are too many pitfalls for satellite to be the only source of data," said Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.
SPACEX公布混合空地计划 SpaceX称，其以一位消息人士称的近80亿美元价格从Grain处收购800兆赫兹频谱牌照的最新交易，是初创的Starlink Mobile提供高速移动服务的“关键下一步”。
SPACEX PUBLISHES HYBRID SPACE-TERRESTRIAL PLAN SpaceX has called the latest deal, in which it acquired 800 MHz spectrum licenses from Grain at a price a source pegged at nearly $8 billion, a "critical next step" for the nascent Starlink Mobile to provide high-speed mobile service.
“Starlink Mobile将部署一种灵活架构，将我们在太空中的卫星到移动星座与先进的地面部署相结合，可在各处无缝连接设备，”包括“室内、室外、蜂窝信号盲区以及两者之间的各处”，SpaceX在宣布收购时表示。
"Starlink Mobile will deploy a flexible architecture combining our satellite-to-mobile constellation in space with an advanced terrestrial deployment that can seamlessly connect devices everywhere," including "indoors, outdoors, in cellular dead zones, and everywhere in between", SpaceX said, announcing the purchase.
SpaceX已获监管机构批准，可部署最多15000颗Starlink Mobile卫星，并计划部署塔楼和屋顶天线等传统地面基础设施——这是一种混合方式，而非纯粹的卫星到手机方式——该公司在上周公开的一份监管文件中阐述了这一点。
SpaceX has received regulatory authorization for up to 15,000 Starlink Mobile satellites and plans to deploy traditional terrestrial infrastructure such as antennas on towers and rooftops — a hybrid approach rather than pure satellite-to-phone — it laid out in a regulatory filing made public last week.
在Starlink Mobile系统中，卫星可以直接连接移动手机，也可以通过地面基础设施中继信号间接连接。这与Starlink和T-Mobile之间的合作伙伴关系技术类似，T-Mobile提供地面网络，而Starlink提供填补没有基站区域的卫星连接。这是一项T-Mobile品牌的服务。
In a Starlink Mobile system, satellites could connect directly to mobile phones and indirectly by relaying signals through ground infrastructure. This is similar to the technology of a partnership between Starlink and T-Mobile, which provides the terrestrial network while Starlink supplies the satellite connectivity that fills in where there are no towers. That is a T-Mobile-branded service.
SpaceX理论上可以与三大公司之一达成协议，使用其地面基础设施，即所谓的移动虚拟网络运营商（MVNO）安排。然而，SpaceX“似乎正在采取更自建地面网络的方式，因为没有人会向他们提供批发MVNO，”Sag表示。
SpaceX in theory could strike a deal with one of the big three companies to use its ground infrastructure, what is known as a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, arrangement. However, SpaceX "appear to be going after a more build-your-own approach to a terrestrial network since nobody will offer them wholesale MVNO," Sag said.
SpaceX需要数倍于目前的频谱才能与三大移动公司的频谱持有量相匹配，尽管当前频谱可能足以启动。“这是一家拥有零移动用户、充足跑道以及强大设备/设备生态系统的公司，”TD Cowen表示。有意竞争对手否认该计划构成迫在眉睫的威胁。
SpaceX would need several times more spectrum to match the holdings of the three big mobile companies, although current spectrum might be enough to start. "It is for a company with zero mobile subscribers, plenty of runway, and a robust device/equipment ecosystem," TD Cowen said. Would-be rivals dismissed the idea that the effort was an imminent threat.
T-Mobile首席技术官约翰·索表示，SpaceX的频谱不足以与成熟移动网络的容量和性能相匹配，而Verizon企业传播副总裁凯蒂·马格诺塔表示，“一家公司可以拥有数十亿美元的频谱，但如果没有网络来使用它，那也只是空中频率。”
T-Mobile Chief Technology Officer John Saw said SpaceX's spectrum would not be enough to match the capacity and performance of established mobile networks, while Katie Magnotta, Verizon's associate vice president of corporate communications, said, "A company can have billions of dollars of spectrum, but if they do not have the network to use it, it's just empty airwaves."