Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Vodafone and Telefónica are in early talks to form a consortium that would bid for European satellite spectrum and offer calls, texts and data to ordinary phones from orbit, Bloomberg reported on September 7, 2026. Paula Doenecke, Gian Volpicelli and Clara Hernanz Lizarraga cited people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified. No decision has been taken on the consortium or on whether it will bid, and all four operators declined to comment.
The prize is a slice of the 2 GHz mobile satellite services band — a 30 MHz pairing that lets a handset keep a connection where no mast reaches. The current licences, held by Viasat and EchoStar since 2009, expire in May 2027. On May 27, 2026 the European Commission proposed running a single EU-level selection for the next licences and splitting the band in three:
- one third to a company under majority European control;
- one third to sovereign government services, delivered through IRIS², the EU’s own constellation;
- one third open to anyone, including SpaceX and Amazon.
That reserved European third is the whole point. Direct-to-device is the one satellite service that reaches a mass market without new hardware, and Starlink dominates it: SpaceX can already send texts, data and calls to unmodified phones, and it resells that capability through mobile operators — Deutsche Telekom among them. What SpaceX cannot do in the EU is run the service on its own, because it does not hold the spectrum. Whoever wins the European third decides whether Starlink is a supplier or a competitor.
The awkward part is that two of the four already have American partners. Deutsche Telekom has an agreement with SpaceX to offer Starlink’s direct-to-device service. Vodafone owns half of a joint venture with AST SpaceMobile, the Texas company building its own phone-to-satellite network. Under the Commission’s proposal that 50/50 structure would not qualify as European-controlled, and Vodafone would have to restructure it to bid, Bloomberg reported. The consortium is less four carriers versus America than four carriers deciding how much of America stays inside the tent.
There is also a hardware problem. Reserving spectrum does not conjure a constellation. IRIS² moved from plan to full deployment in August 2026, with 348 satellites and a bill above €15bn, but it will not enter service until 2029, starts with broadband rather than phones, and its direct-to-mobile capability is limited and arrives via Hispasat. Europe’s other candidates are small: Spain’s Sateliot is seeking €150m to beam 5G to handsets, and Eutelsat is still waiting for growth to return in 2027. Amazon, by contrast, has asked the FCC for 5,105 satellites dedicated to phones.
And the rulebook is not law yet. The proposal still has to clear the European Parliament and the Council before May 2027, or the existing licences lapse into a vacuum. Brussels has been tilting the field elsewhere too: the EU Space Act would put any operator serving EU users under prior authorisation, and four American space companies withdrew under White House pressure from Macron’s Paris space summit, scheduled for September 9 and 10, 2026.
