SpaceX seeks 80,000 cell sites; AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile shares fall

SpaceX is in talks with cellular infrastructure companies for access to at least 80,000 sites across the United States, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The talks include Crown Castle. The towers could let Elon Musk's space company become a fourth nationwide wireless carrier alongside AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. Eighty thousand sites would be about half of the roughly 158,500 purpose-built cell towers in the U.S. Crown Castle, American Tower, Vertical Bridge and SpaceX did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

The report rattled markets. In premarket trading on Friday, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile were each down more than 3%. Crown Castle rose more than 7% and American Tower more than 5%. Crown Castle CEO Christian Hillabrant had said earlier that the company was talking to "all parties" about potential leases, including SpaceX and Amazon.

On SpaceX's earnings call, Musk confirmed plans for a ground-based wireless network to complement the Starlink satellite service. Earlier in October, SpaceX agreed to buy nationwide 800 MHz spectrum. The deal still needs approval from the Federal Communications Commission. Investment bank TD Cowen estimates a nationwide network would cost more than $80 billion.