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SpaceX’s ambitious, expensive gamble to replace AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon

Cell service isn’t rocket ships or flying cars, but it could be a booming business for SpaceX.

移动通信服务虽然不是火箭飞船或飞行汽车，但它对 SpaceX 而言可能是一项蓬勃发展的业务。

Today, I’m talking with Walter Piecyk, a partner and analyst at LightShed Partners who covers tech, media, and telecom, about SpaceX’s recently announced plan to become a major wireless carrier.

今天，我将与 LightShed Partners 的合伙人兼分析师 Walter Piecyk 进行对话。他主要负责科技、媒体和电信领域的研究，我们将探讨 SpaceX 最近宣布的成为大型无线运营商的计划。

Last week, SpaceX agreed to buy a big chunk of low-band spectrum to expand the Starlink network, spectrum that’s been traded around the telecom business for decades now. SpaceX’s ambitious plan is to use that spectrum to help build “the world’s most advanced mobile network.”

上周，SpaceX 同意购买大量低频段频谱以扩展星链（Starlink）网络，这些频谱在电信行业中已被交易了数十年。SpaceX 的宏伟计划是利用这些频谱来帮助构建“世界上最先进的移动网络”。

Combined with news that the FCC approved the deployment of 15,000 next-gen Starlink satellites and the company’s previous agreement to purchase close to $20 billion worth of EchoStar spectrum last year, it’s now clear SpaceX is serious about competing with AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

结合美国联邦通信委员会（FCC）批准部署 15,000 颗下一代星链卫星的消息，以及该公司去年达成的一项价值近 200 亿美元的 EchoStar 频谱购买协议，现在很明显，SpaceX 是在认真地与 AT&T、Verizon 和 T-Mobile 展开竞争。

I’ve covered the telecom business for a long time, and I’ve always known that these companies can say they want to do something until they run into the harsh reality of how expensive it is to actually do it. The telecom graveyard of pivots, bad ideas, and failed acquisitions is vast.

我报道电信行业已经很长时间了，我一直都知道，这些公司在遇到实际操作中高昂成本的残酷现实之前，总是会声称自己想要做某事。电信行业充斥着转型失败、糟糕创意和收购失败的“坟场”。

Walt has been closely monitoring SpaceX’s acquisition, and he’s correctly predicted that the company was headed in this direction for months now. So I wanted to dig into whether SpaceX can pull this off, why Walt thinks the existing telecom giants have really fumbled their response to SpaceX’s growing threat, and what happens when Elon Musk’s rocket company jumps headfirst into a business everyone loves to hate.

Walt 一直在密切关注 SpaceX 的收购行动，并且几个月前就准确预测了该公司正朝着这个方向发展。因此，我想深入探讨 SpaceX 是否能成功实现这一目标，为什么 Walt 认为现有的电信巨头在应对 SpaceX 日益增长的威胁时表现得如此笨拙，以及当埃隆·马斯克的火箭公司一头扎进这个“人人爱恨交加”的行业时会发生什么。