Four of Europe's biggest mobile operators have signed a letter of intent to explore a joint bid for satellite spectrum, a first step toward a possible European alternative to Starlink.
Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica, and Vodafone said they will look at "a potential joint bid for the future allocation of spectrum for Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) in Europe." Spectrum is the slice of radio frequencies a service is licensed to use, and MSS is the category covering satellite links to ordinary phones. The goal is to extend coverage into areas where masts and other ground infrastructure do not reach.
The wording is cautious. The letter commits the companies to exploring a bid, not making one. Even a winning bid would leave them to "establish key ground network infrastructure." And they do not plan to build a constellation themselves. They want to "support the development of a European constellation" and are looking for a satellite partner, which is the piece the plan does not yet have.
The rival they are measuring themselves against has moved faster. Starlink has partnered with T-Mobile in the US and O2 in the UK to fill gaps in their networks, and it has ambitions to launch a standalone carrier. That makes it a supplier and a potential competitor at once. A carrier that depends on it for coverage is renting reach from a company that may eventually want its customers.
A pooled European bid is a sensible hedge against that, and it fits Europe's broader effort to lessen its reliance on US services. But a spectrum bid is the easy part to announce. Satellites are what turn spectrum into a product, and no one has said who would supply them.