---
title: One rented tower, 11 times its rent
date: 2026-10-23
summary: SpaceX is reported to be in talks to rent at least 80,000 US cell sites. Our estimate is that one site costs about 20,300 dollars a year in rent but could earn about 11 times that in phone bills, so winning subscribers, more than paying rent, is the hard part.
tags: [Starlink, Financials]
sources:
  - Bloomberg report via InfoMoney, SpaceX in talks for 80,000 towers (22 Oct 2026) | https://www.infomoney.com.br/business/spacex-negocia-acesso-a-80-mil-torres-para-desafiar-gigantes-da-telefonia-nos-eua/
  - Bloomberg report via O Globo (22 Oct 2026) | https://oglobo.globo.com/economia/tecnologia/noticia/2026/10/22/spacex-negocia-acesso-a-80-mil-torres-de-telefonia-para-sua-rede-sem-fio.ghtml
  - Zerohedge on X, Bloomberg headline (22 Oct 2026) | https://x.com/zerohedge/status/2113383237804556491
  - Crown Castle Q3 2026 earnings call transcript, Motley Fool (21 Oct 2026) | https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2026/10/21/crown-castle-cci-q3-2026-earnings-call-transcript/
  - Crown Castle Q3 2026 earnings release, SEC EDGAR | https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1051470/000105147026000085/q32026earningsrelease.htm
  - SpaceX Q3 2026 earnings call replay (unofficial transcript) | https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1PKqrNbLZbPGb
  - SpaceX Q3 2026 earnings call transcript, Motley Fool (20 Oct 2026) | https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2026/10/20/spacex-spcx-q3-2026-earnings-call-transcript/
  - SpaceX Q3 2026 results release | https://s21.q4cdn.com/184289198/files/content_files/SpaceX-Reports-Third-Quarter-2026-Results.pdf
  - SpaceX Q2 2026 Form 10-Q (EchoStar spectrum terms), SEC EDGAR | https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1181412/000162828026052535/spcx-20260630.htm
  - SpaceX Q3 2026 Form 10-Q, cover share count as of 15 Oct 2026, SEC EDGAR | https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1181412/000162828026066880/spcx-20260930.htm
  - Inside Towers, The U.S. 4th National Wireless Network is Dead (11 Sep 2025) | https://insidetowers.com/the-u-s-4th-national-wireless-network-is-dead/
  - CTIA 2026 Annual Survey Highlights | https://api.ctia.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/2026-Annual-Survey-Highlights.pdf
  - RCR Wireless, US telco 2025 revenue (12 Feb 2026) | https://rcrwireless.com/20260212/business/us-telcos-broadband
  - T-Mobile Q4 and FY2025 results, SEC EDGAR | https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1283699/000128369926000007/tmus12312025ex991.htm
  - CNBC, SpaceX wireless plans lift tower stocks (9 Oct 2026) | https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/09/spacex-wireless-plans-lifts-tower-stocks.html
  - MarketBeat, American Tower Q3 2026 earnings date | https://www.marketbeat.com/earnings/reports/2026-10-27-american-tower-co-reit-stock/
  - Yahoo Finance, SPCX quote (22 Oct 2026 close) | https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SPCX/
---

## Key takeaways

- Bloomberg reports SpaceX is in talks to access at least 80,000 US cell sites. That is about 18 percent of the roughly 442,000 sites CTIA counts (our estimate).
- One site rents for about 20,300 dollars a year (our estimate from Crown Castle's DISH numbers). At T-Mobile's 2025 postpaid phone ARPU of 50.37 dollars a month, about 34 phone lines cover that rent.
- In our base case one site earns about 220,000 dollars a year, roughly 11 times its rent (our estimate).
- The base rate: DISH spent 7.7 billion dollars to build about 24,000 sites, about 321,000 dollars a site, and then left the market (Inside Towers, our math).
- Our probability weighted value for a SpaceX US carrier business is about 126 billion dollars, or $SPCX = ~$9.27, about 6 percent of the 144.75 dollar close on 22 October. Our estimate, not a price target.

## What happened

On 22 October, Bloomberg reported that SpaceX wants access to at least 80,000 US cell sites and is negotiating with at least one large tower company, citing people familiar with the matter. Crown Castle is one of the companies in the talks. The deals could be worth billions of dollars. American Tower declined to comment. Nothing has been signed.

On its Q3 call the day before, Crown Castle CEO Chris Hillabrant would not discuss specific customers but said "you can assume that we're talking to all parties."

SpaceX has been building toward this. On its own Q3 call, Elon Musk said "we will be building out our terrestrial network," and Gwynne Shotwell said SpaceX will "leverage the real estate from Starlink installs and other towers" and aims "to turn on service in early 2028." SpaceX also reported 22 million monthly Starlink Mobile users, FCC approval for 15,000 Mobile V2 satellites, and an agreement to buy nationwide 800 MHz spectrum, which still needs regulatory approval. Low band spectrum like 800 MHz matters because, as Crown's CFO Sunit Patel put it, "you need low band to get into buildings."

## The unit: one rented tower site

A cell site is a spot on a tower or rooftop where a carrier hangs radios. The owner charges rent. Here is the chain for one site. Every step is our estimate built from sourced inputs.

| Step | Input | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Rent per site a year | Crown lost 61 million dollars of DISH rent in Q3. Times 4, over 12,000 DISH sites | about 20,300 dollars |
| 2. Revenue per phone line a year | T-Mobile 2025 postpaid phone ARPU, 50.37 dollars x 12 | about 604 dollars |
| 3. Lines needed to cover rent | 20,300 / 604 | about 34 lines |
| 4. Base case revenue per site | 17.6 billion dollars base case revenue / 80,000 sites | about 220,000 dollars |
| 5. Revenue to rent ratio | 220,000 / 20,300 | about 11x |

ARPU means average revenue per user per month. Crown says DISH equipment sits on over 12,000 of its towers, so step 1 is an upper bound.

Step 4 is roughly 364 lines a site at T-Mobile's ARPU, or about 29 million lines across 80,000 sites. So rent is a small cost. The real question is whether a new carrier can win tens of millions of customers.

## The base rate: what DISH paid

DISH tried to become the fourth US carrier. From 2020 through mid 2025 it spent 7.7 billion dollars to build roughly 24,000 sites covering about 75 percent of the US population, per Inside Towers. That is about 321,000 dollars a site for radios, fiber and setup (our estimate). Then it sold its spectrum and walked away. Hillabrant said of the gear left on Crown towers: "DISH has abandoned the equipment. They walked away from it."

Now put DISH's build cost next to our revenue per site.

| Case | Revenue per site a year | Margin | Profit per site a year | Years to repay 321,000 dollars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bull | about 529,000 dollars | 30% | about 159,000 dollars | about 2 |
| Base | about 220,000 dollars | 25% | about 55,000 dollars | about 6 |
| Bear | about 44,000 dollars | 20% | about 9,000 dollars | about 37 |

All figures are our estimate. The bear case is roughly where DISH ended up: sites built, too few customers.

Scale check: 80,000 sites at DISH's cost would be about 25.7 billion dollars. SpaceX spent 19.6 billion dollars on capex in Q3 alone, so that is about 1.3 quarters of its current spending (our estimate). A year of rent, about 1.63 billion dollars, equals roughly 8 days of Q3 capex.

SpaceX also starts from a different place than DISH did. It has agreed to buy spectrum from DISH's parent EchoStar for total consideration of about 19.6 billion dollars, per its Q2 10-Q, and has satellites to cover gaps between towers.

## What the whole network could be worth

Verizon (138.2 billion dollars), AT&T (125.6 billion dollars) and T-Mobile (88.3 billion dollars) had about 352 billion dollars of combined 2025 revenue. Our estimate of a SpaceX US carrier business around 2031, using 13,581,063,709 shares (10-Q cover, 15 Oct 2026):

| Case | Odds | Share of 352B | Revenue | Margin | Multiple | Value | $SPCX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bull | 25% | 12% | 42.3B | 30% | 25x | 317B | ~$23.33 |
| Base | 50% | 5% | 17.6B | 25% | 20x | 88B | ~$6.48 |
| Bear | 25% | 1% | 3.5B | 20% | 15x | 10.6B | ~$0.78 |
| Weighted | | | | | | 125.9B | ~$9.27 |

```bars Weighted contribution to value, billion dollars (our estimate)
Bull, 25% of 317B | 79.2
Base, 50% of 88B | 44.0
Bear, 25% of 10.6B | 2.6
Weighted total | 125.9 | $SPCX = ~$9.27
```

The multiple is the price investors pay for each dollar of operating profit.

## The second order effect

Tower owners may win whether SpaceX succeeds or not. Hillabrant said SpaceX could lift demand in two ways: by leasing towers for its own network, and as a catalyst for existing carriers to invest more in theirs. The market reacted. When SpaceX agreed to buy the 800 MHz licenses, Crown Castle rose about 12 percent in mid-morning trading and American Tower and SBA rose at least 6 percent, while T-Mobile fell about 10 percent, per CNBC.

There is also a neat fit for Crown. Its DISH losses run at about 244 million dollars a year (61 million times 4). If SpaceX rented all of Crown's roughly 40,000 towers at the same rate, that would be about 810 million dollars a year, more than three times the hole DISH left (our estimate, and speculation on how the 80,000 sites would split between owners).

## What to watch

- 27 October: American Tower Q3 results, the next tower owner to face questions on SpaceX.
- Any signed lease with Crown Castle, American Tower or Vertical Bridge.
- Regulatory approval and closing of the 800 MHz deal.
- 2027: Mobile V2 satellite launches.
- Early 2028: SpaceX's target to turn on service on the new spectrum.

## What would make this wrong

The talks may be leverage rather than a build plan. TD analyst Gregory Williams wrote, as quoted by CNBC on 9 October, that SpaceX "may be bluffing to keep wireless down" and win a wholesale deal from a carrier. We also do not know whether DISH's 321,000 dollars a site is a fair guide for SpaceX, which may reuse Starlink installs and gear already on towers.

Not financial advice.