T-Mobile just killed your hopes for this MVNO dream team

T-Mobile teamed up with Starlink for its T-Satellite service, which brings satellite connectivity to any modern smartphone. The company has since announced a new 5G business plan that uses Starlink for backup internet connectivity. But what about the prospect of a Starlink MVNO?

T-Mobile CEO Srinivasan Gopalan poured cold water on the prospect of a Starlink MVNO during the carrier’s Q1 2026 earnings call:

On MVNOs, we’ve got a very clear philosophy or approach to MVNOs. MVNOs make sense for us when it’s a TAM [total addressable market – ed] expansion. A TAM expansion happens because it’s a new customer base that we couldn’t target earlier. It’s a new channel. I mean an example of this is what we did with cable focused on SMB [small and medium-sized businesses – ed]. It’s not obvious to me how an MVNO with SpaceX or any other LEO operator fulfills those conditions.

In other words, T-Mobile thinks a Starlink MVNO wouldn’t actually grow the market. This statement comes months after Starlink filed trademarks for Starlink Mobile. It also follows the company’s acquisition of terrestrial bandwidth from Boost Mobile’s parent company. So a Starlink mobile service of some kind isn’t out of the question, but T-Mobile might not play a part.

Interestingly, Gopalan says the T-Satellite service is seeing “a lot less usage” than the company originally envisioned. He nevertheless praised it as a “great complementary product.” This admission comes almost a year after T-Mobile and Starlink launched the service, which offers emergency SOS, texting, voice chat, and some data connectivity. T-Satellite also stands out from satellite services provided by most manufacturers, as it doesn’t require specific hardware.