SpaceX plans to build ground-based network infrastructure and turn Starlink into a full mobile service, president Gwynne Shotwell said on Tuesday — a shift that knocked shares in the largest US wireless carriers and puts the satellite operator on a collision course with terrestrial mobile networks. She said the company would build whatever infrastructure was needed to make Starlink “a true mobile service”, and expected to win “quite a few” customers away from the three biggest US carriers. An MVNO sells mobile service under its own brand while leasing capacity from an operator that owns the network. South African mobile operators are unlikely to face any sort of challenge in mobile from Starlink any time soon. Shotwell’s confirmation that SpaceX intends to build terrestrial infrastructure may make that argument considerably harder to dismiss.