Telecom analysts have a favourite warning: it is easy to announce a bold plan and very hard to pay for it. The industry's graveyard of pivots, failed mergers and abandoned ideas is vast. So when SpaceX announced that it wants to build "the world's most advanced mobile network", the instinct of veterans was scepticism. Then came the receipts.

Last week SpaceX agreed to buy a block of low-band spectrum for about $8 billion, airwaves that have changed hands within the telecom business for decades. That follows a deal last year to buy close to $20 billion of spectrum from EchoStar, and a decision by the US regulator, the FCC, to approve 15,000 next-generation Starlink satellites. Taken together, these moves suggest a company that is serious about competing with AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, not just talking about it. Walter Piecyk, a partner at LightShed Partners who has covered telecoms for years, predicted this direction months ago.

His argument, discussed on The Verge's Decoder podcast, is that the incumbents have fumbled their response to the threat. Low-band spectrum matters because its signals travel far and penetrate buildings, which makes it valuable for connecting ordinary phones directly to satellites rather than to towers. The deeper significance is a change in who sets the rules. Traditional carriers spent generations building towers, and their customers often resent them for it.