Verizon CEO Dan Schulman is ready and willing for fisticuffs when SpaceX launches its Starlink Mobile service, a launch he expects to happen.

Schulman took a combative stance toward that eventuality, telling investors during the carrier’s latest earnings call that he is operating on the assumption that SpaceX will indeed move forward with its offering and that Verizon is ready for combat.

“I welcome the opportunity to compete against them,” Schulman said of SpaceX’s cellular rival. “It's very hard to throw a punch against something that doesn't exist, but once they come into the market, we will be ferociously competitive.”

Schulman explained that his “operating assumption” is that SpaceX will launch a Starlink Mobile service, and “that they will execute flawlessly. … I think assuming anything else makes no sense from my perspective.”

That perspective is based on SpaceX’s recent explanation of that intent and deployment model, which will see the satellite-based telecommunication provider combine those extra-terrestrial assets with recently acquired terrestrial spectrum assets and backed by its already deployed terrestrial receiving components.

“We always knew that they needed a terrestrial network to have any chance at providing a competitive service,” Schulman said of that move. “It's not surprising; they said it on their call. So I think we should take it quite seriously. And from what we see and what we hear in the market, because there are no secrets in the market, we know exactly what they're going to do. We know what their RFIs are. We know who they're talking to on towers. We know who they're talking to put terrestrial equipment in place. Like inside the industry, we know exactly what they're thinking about doing it.”

Despite his firm belief and insight in SpaceX’s intentions, Schulman also passive-aggressively laid out what that intent would entail. This included up to 80,000 macro sites; backhaul through a combination of fiber and “maybe some form of satellite” connectivity; radio access network (RAN) equipment; and a “tremendous amount of spectrum.”

“And assuming that's the case, and assuming they try to go do that, it's going to take a minimum of four to six years to fully build that out,” Schulman said. “It's going to cost hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars. I assume somewhere between 300 billion and half-a-trillion over the next like seven or eight years.”

And with that time and investment, Schulman said SpaceX will have “basically the same network and same capabilities and same cost structure as what we have today.”

Schulman also countered the notion of Verizon working with Starlink through a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) model and also reiterated that there were no “back doors” to any of its MVNO partners offering terrestrial access to Starlink.

“There is no benefit to Verizon extending an MVNO deal, and we look forward to being able in four, six years to finally punch back, and we'll punch back hard when that happens,” Schulman said.

MmWave-bolstered FWA

That pending battle aside, Verizon is also prepping an imminent launch of an enhanced fixed-wireless access (FWA) service that will tap into the carrier’s deep millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum holdings.

Schulman said the carrier has developed an “innovative solution” that will allow it to use its approximately 1,700-megahertz of mmWave spectrum holdings to provide 1 Gb/s FWA service in metro areas across the country. This service is expected to serve up to 15 million connections complementing the carrier’s already growing fiber-based broadband expansion that is set to hit 50 million customers passed over the next several years.

The executive did not expand on the technical innovation of the new offering, but the carrier did recently move to acquire fixed-wireless broadband provider Starry to expand the carrier’s multidwelling unit (MDU) aspirations. Verizon has also been trialing various mmWave-based network technologies over the past several years.

Schulman said that updated FWA service would launch before the end of this year and sets the carrier up to extend its still-standing FWA ambition to serve up to nine million connections by 2028.

“The truth of the matter is now that we have a high-speed FWA offer, we'll go well beyond that now because we have a lot more capabilities. We have a lot more capacity to do that,” Schulman said.

$2B AWS AI infrastructure deal

Schulman during the earnings call also touted the carrier scoring a $2 billion dark fiber agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS), a deal that follows a $1 billion agreement with Google announced earlier this year and sets the stage for more AI infrastructure-related contracts.

“These two contracts are a clear signal that the largest builders of AI infrastructure in the world are choosing Verizon as a strategic connectivity partner,” Schulman said of the Google and AWS deals. “We now have an active pipeline of additional hyperscalers, neocloud providers, and large enterprise clients. We're in negotiations to have us supply them with either dark or lit fiber connectivity.”

Schulman did not provide financial specifics beyond those two deals but did say the carrier was now sitting on approximately $4 billion in signed contracts.

“And based on the demand we are seeing, we expect both our fiber and edge computing to add meaningfully to our future growth,” Schulman said of those combined efforts. “All of these revenues come with attractive margins, and we will begin to see their impact in 2027. These are long-duration contracts with high-quality counterparties that leverage our fiber capabilities and existing real estate assets. The incremental capital required to deliver against these agreements is modest and success-based and tied to defined contracts.”