US telecom operators wobble after report SpaceX in talks for cell sites

FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, gestures as he attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris, France, June 16, 2023. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo

Oct 23 (Reuters) - US telecom stocks ⁠declined on Friday after a report that SpaceX was seeking thousands ⁠of cell sites for a fourth wireless carrier, fueling concerns ‌over fresh competition.

Elon Musk's rocket and space technology company was in talksto access at least 80,000 cell sites to build its wireless carrier from scratch, Bloomberg News reported late on Thursday, ​citing sources familiar with the matter.

AT&T fell 5.6% ⁠to a more than three-month ⁠low, Verizon lost 1.6% and T-Mobile shed 5%.

Germany's Deutsche Telekom, which holds an ⁠over ‌50% stake in T-Mobile, lost 3.2%.

"The competitive impact may still be years away, but anticipation alone, reinforced by each successive spectrum and ⁠infrastructure move, is likely to remain an overhang on ​sector sentiment," Bernstein analysts ‌said in a note.

Tower operators and SpaceX did not immediately respond ⁠to requests for ​comment.

The report comes weeks after SpaceX acquired low-band spectrum to advance its carrier plans, mounting a direct, orbital challenge to legacy wireless giants in the US and ⁠sending AT&T and Verizon shares to their worst ​one-day falls in more than two decades.

Bernstein analysts said that an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) deal with SpaceX may not appeal to telecom operators, but a ⁠unified stance against one has done little to lift sentiment, leaving carriers to reassess their options.

SpaceX's Starlink has been generating revenue from internet services in sparsely populated and rural areas, but becoming a true rival to major carriers ​will require years of work and a terrestrial ⁠network.

Tower operator Crown Castle, however, surged 11.6% after the report identified it as ​one of the cellular infrastructure companies SpaceX was ‌in talks with.

Other operators also rose, with ​American Tower up 4.9% and SBA Communications adding 4.6%.

Shares of SpaceX rose 1.7%.

(Reporting by Purvi Agarwal in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)

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资料照片：2023年6月16日，SpaceX和特斯拉首席执行官、前身为Twitter的X公司所有者埃隆·马斯克在法国巴黎凡尔赛门展览中心出席Viva Technology创新创业大会时做出手势。路透社/冈萨洛·富恩特斯/资料照片

10 月 23 日（路透社）——有报道称 SpaceX 正在为第四家无线运营商寻求数千个基站，这加剧了人们对新竞争的担忧，美国电信股周五下跌。

据彭博新闻周四晚间援引知情人士报道，埃隆·马斯克的火箭和太空技术公司正在洽谈使用至少 8 万个基站，以便从零开始建设其无线运营商网络。

AT&T 股价下跌 5.6%，创三个多月以来新低；Verizon 股价下跌 1.6%；T-Mobile 股价下跌 5%。

持有 T-Mobile 50% 以上股份的德国电信股价下跌 3.2%。

伯恩斯坦分析师在一份报告中表示：“竞争影响可能还要几年才会显现，但仅仅是预期，再加上每一次频谱和基础设施的变动，就可能继续对行业情绪构成下行压力。”

塔台运营商和SpaceX公司尚未对此事作出回应。

这份报告发布几周前，SpaceX 收购了低频段频谱以推进其运营商计划，直接向美国传统无线巨头发起轨道挑战，并导致 AT&T 和 Verizon 的股价创下二十多年来的最大单日跌幅。

伯恩斯坦分析师表示，与 SpaceX 达成 MVNO（移动虚拟网络运营商）协议可能不会吸引电信运营商，但反对某项协议的统一立场并没有提振市场情绪，这使得运营商不得不重新评估他们的选择。

SpaceX 的星链 (Starlink) 一直在人口稀少的农村地区通过互联网服务创造收入，但要成为大型运营商的真正竞争对手，还需要多年的努力和地面网络建设。

然而，在报道指出铁塔运营商 Crown Castle 是 SpaceX 正在洽谈的蜂窝基础设施公司之一后，该公司股价飙升了 11.6%。

其他运营商的股价也上涨，其中美国铁塔公司上涨 4.9%，SBA 通信公司上涨 4.6%。

SpaceX股价上涨1.7%。

（Purvi Agarwal在班加罗尔报道；Vijay Kishore编辑）

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