The sad state of reporting in the world. I was a Boost Mobile customer for years with a cheap $15/mo phone plan as they were primarily a MVNO, Mobile Virtual Network Operator, or reseller. But just before I left they were rolling out their own cellular towers and moving towards being an actual cellular company to go premium pricing with an expensive marketing campaign, while also cutting off phone deals to existing customers. I had got a Motorola Stylus 5G 2023 from them for $19, carrier locked for 2 years, but that was a $300 midrange phone (my backup now with LineagoOS installed, updated weekly). At the end you couldn’t get a phone deal unless you spent $50/mo. Also, there are legal requirements for telecoms to open themselves up to resellers, so I don’t think they can lock SpaceX out completely, and Musk certainly has the ability to embarrass them publicly as well as maybe upstaging their lobbying power. Consequently, Musk’s companies are some of the worst data gathering, spyware companies between X and Tesla, so I wouldn’t rush to use his service. And I ended up going with MobileX which is a Verizon reseller, and keeping my $15/mo plan with 10GB of data before throttling (I could get by with less but keep it for a hotspot backup for outages or travel, and MobileX has many options).
By Jackson Chen
SpaceX may have found a potential path to circumvent its way into the mobile carrier industry via Boost Mobile. As first reported by The Washington Post, Elon Musk’s company has held talks with Boost Mobile’s parent company, EchoStar, in recent months that could see SpaceX launch “its own signature wireless service” through the existing network.
According to Washington Post’s sources, the deal could look like SpaceX acquiring Boost Mobile outright or gaining access to its cell network, which is leased from AT&T and T-Mobile. There could be a major hitch with the deal though, since SpaceX’s potential mobile service would need the green light from those major mobile carriers, according to the report. The Washington Post also reported that major cell companies, which include AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, have already turned down Musk down for access to its cell networks in order to launch a separate SpaceX service.
No deal has been confirmed yet, but the talks between SpaceX and EchoStar shouldn’t be surprising for anyone paying attention to the company’s recent dealings. Last year SpaceX acquired $2.6 billion worth of spectrum licenses from EchoStar, which would be used to improve its Starlink network’s 5G connections. More recently, Starlink confirmed its plans to become a “major mobile carrier in the US” and made another major acquisition in the hopes of achieving that goal.