Musk's Starlink mobile push sparks a sell-off in BT and Vodafone shares as Europe's telecom giants explore a rival satellite bid

SpaceX has bought Grain Management's 800 MHz spectrum for about $8 billion and is buying 65 MHz from EchoStar for around $19.6 billion. The deals will create Starlink Mobile, which aims to become 'a major mobile carrier in the US'. It plans to launch a direct-to-consumer service across America by the end of next year. Elon Musk insisted in 2020 that Starlink was 'not some huge threat to the telcos'.

Starlink has only 100,000 UK customers out of 13 million worldwide.