SpaceX and AST SpaceMobile Inc. are among the companies that have expressed interest in acquiring radio frequency spectrum licenses held by Grain Management LLC and valued at $6 billion, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
The licenses are considered valuable for providing wireless phone service directly from space.
The 800 MHz band licenses became available after Grain Management completed a spectrum exchange with T-Mobile US Inc. this month. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the deal, the terms of which require Grain Management to find bidders to utilize the spectrum—described by the commission in its decision as underutilized, according to Bloomberg.
The FCC has set a deadline of November 5 for the bidding process.
In early August, SpaceX announced its intention to aggressively enter the telecommunications market. The company’s satellite communications division, Starlink, is its primary revenue source and its only profitable unit.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote “not true” in a social media post responding to the Bloomberg report.
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