Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone signed a letter of intent on Monday to explore a joint bid for satellite spectrum, a coordinated move by Europe’s largest mobile operators that could shift control of satellite-to-phone connectivity away from a single US-controlled network. The announcement lands squarely in the middle of a wider policy debate in Brussels over who governs Europe’s critical communications infrastructure.
The spectrum would allow compatible smartphones to connect directly to satellites, bypassing the traditional mobile towers that underpin today’s networks. The four companies framed the move explicitly in terms of European oversight. “The initiative supports the European Commission’s ambition to strengthen Europe’s sovereignty, security and resilience in critical connectivity infrastructure,” they said in a joint statement, adding that it “will ensure responsible European governance of key space infrastructure.”
The structure of the proposed arrangement is notable for what the operators are not committing to. Rather than building their own satellite constellation, the four companies would establish the ground infrastructure needed to support satellite-to-mobile services, while partnering with a satellite operator to supply connectivity from space. No satellite partner has yet been selected. The model keeps the operators’ capital exposure limited while placing the governance of the service, at least on the ground side, under European hands.
The timing is not incidental. The announcement comes amid mounting controversy surrounding Starlink, the satellite service operated by SpaceX, the aerospace company led by US billionaire Elon Musk. Ukraine has depended heavily on Starlink terminals for civilian and military communications since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, particularly in areas where conventional networks have been damaged or destroyed. That dependence has now become a live accountability question. Disruptions to satellite communications in Ukraine this month, linked to restrictions affecting terminals moving at high speeds, have reportedly hampered Ukrainian drone operations. US President Donald Trump has denied that the United States imposed the restrictions, but the episode has underlined the risks of relying on foreign-controlled satellite infrastructure for critical communications.
For European policymakers, the episode illustrates a structural vulnerability: a service of strategic importance can be subject to restrictions imposed outside any European mandate, with no formal channel of oversight available to the governments that depend on it. The operators’ letter of intent is, in effect, a market-based response to that gap, complementing the regulatory track already underway in Brussels.
Meanwhile, the European Commission has been pushing to develop the bloc’s own satellite capabilities for some time. The planned IRIS² constellation is intended to provide secure communications for European governments and other users, and the operators’ statement ties their initiative directly to that sovereignty agenda. Yet the scale of the challenge is considerable. Eutelsat, which operates OneWeb, Europe’s largest low Earth orbit broadband network, fields a constellation far smaller than Starlink’s, which has more than 11,000 satellites in orbit.
The questions that will determine whether the operators’ plan amounts to more than a statement of intent are institutional ones. Which satellite operator will be selected as the partner, and under what governance terms? How will spectrum be secured, and through which regulatory processes? And to what extent will the resulting service fall under European oversight rather than the discretion of a foreign provider? The letter of intent answers none of these questions yet; it commits the four companies only to exploring a joint bid.
What it does signal is a convergence of commercial and policy interests. Four of Europe’s biggest telecom firms, acting together rather than individually, have placed themselves in alignment with the Commission’s stated ambition of technological independence from US firms in critical connectivity. Whether that alignment produces a functioning European alternative to Starlink will depend on the partner selection, the spectrum bid and the regulatory groundwork that follows. For now, the accountability question that the Ukraine disruptions have sharpened, namely who holds the levers of control over satellite communications that governments and militaries rely on, has acquired a potential European answer in the making.